Russian Roulette
by treena-ivy-carter
Summary: A group of twelve is seated around a round table in the dark in the dead of night. They seek to play a game. In this game, to win one must lose, to lose one must win. To play, one only has to pull the trigger. What brought these despairing souls here? What led them to the choice to play this game? The game of choice is Russian Roulette. (Suicide, Character Death, abuse, rape, etc.)
1. The Suicidal Round Table of King Arthur

**AN. I downloaded a revolver app to my iPhone and I was doing an experiment of probability - I sound like such a dork; I was doing this for _fun_ - and that inspired me to write a morbid story. I'm a morbid person. Deal with it. This is a type of story that I refer to as a character study. I usually write stories by "meeting" a character in my head - such as _Pit Pat's_ Sin, and I want to tell their story. I get to know the character as I write. The character lives in my head, and comments over things and then, once I know them, I ask them what led them to my mind and they tell me their story. So, in this story I was introduced to a nameless character called the Man with the Gun (I name them myself, though sometimes they provide me with a name that I change). The Man with the Gun told me a sad tale of what led him to make the choices he made, and then I transcribed his story to a character of this tale. I do not appreciate flamers, because the Man with a Gun is exceptionally real to me, just as real as Sin, or the Beast, or Harry of the Heir (though his character in my head is actually called Travesty), or the character of Toy - a story I may publish on fanfiction - whose name is Tragedy. **

**The Man with a Gun has a story to be told. I wish you well if you endeavor to read it. This is his tale, I am merely his means to a typewriter.  
**

**Russian Roulette **by Treena-Ivy Thyme Carter

**Summary: A group of twelve is seated around a round table in the dark in the dead of night. They seek to play a game. In this game, to win one must lose, to lose one must win. To play, one only has to pull the trigger. What brought these despairing souls here? What led them to the choice to play this game?  
**

Chapter 1: Prologue

A group of twelve is seated around a round table in a dark room in the dead of night. The wall is hung with twelve candles, one for every player in the room. Each chair is wooden and straight-backed, but painted in different colors with different symbols on each, though the chairs are hidden in the shadows. The table is ironically white, but by the end of the eve, splatters will dot the edges of it. In the center of the table, twelve gleaming rounds lie in a near perfect circle and one simple revolver, glinting and reflecting the light of the candles on the walls around the seated players.

The dark room is meant for a game. This game is sick, and even wrong to some. But the game is merely wrong to those who have never felt the need to play it. Each of the players, nine males and three females, sat in a coordinated order. Each player has their own story, their own paths, their own reasons and their own pains that have led them here to play this game. Each are dressed in their finest clothing, each have their last goodbyes sorted, and each have their respective letters in their respective places ready for any loved ones – if they have any at all that is.

The door is locked behind them.

The players look at each other and one sighs. The one that sighed said, "Thank you for coming. I had doubted that anyone would."

No one replied to the speaker. The speaker nodded and reached a hand across the table. He picked up the revolver and opened the stock pin and took one of the rounds from the table. He slipped it into one of the cylinders, closed it, and rolled it. It stopped and he held the grip in his hand lovingly. He ran a hand down the silver barrel of the gun before handing it to another man across the table.

This man nodded at the speaker and held the gun in his hand. He stared down at it, weighing it in his light, shaking grasp and he laughed sadly. He whispered, though his voice echoed in the silent room, "I never thought it'd come to this."

A woman to the laughing man's side sighed and said monotonously, "But it did. I never thought it would either."

The laughing man put the muzzle to his temple and said to the woman on his left, "I love you, Hermione."

"And I love you, Ron." Both of their voices were without emotion. What had brought them here? What had brought all of these sad players here? Why were they doing this to themselves?

The speaker, the sighing man across the table stared at them, his cracked spectacles reflecting the lights of the candles. He rubbed a hand over his green eyes as his friends gave their last goodbyes to each other. He expected nothing from them now. He expected nothing but the sweet relief of death awaiting them. He expected an end to his pain, and he hoped for an end to theirs, for he loved them more than anything in the world.

He, the laughing man, smiled at her, though the darkness concealed most of his blue-eyed gaze that told the story of tragedy. The candles only lit so much in the dark room, and he sighed. He imagined his breath was white and visible before, like the snow of winter, or perhaps the color of his soul leaving his body. He was suddenly disgusted with himself at the image and looked down at the polished revolver. He pulled the gun up until it rested against his right temple, and his red hair brushed against it. He closed his eyes and held his breath as he pulled the trigger.

**AN. Will you continue?**


	2. The Man Who Laughed Through His Tears

**Welcome back. We'll begin with the tragic tale of one of my both favorite and least favorite characters. In the canon universe, I didn't like him very much. In fact, I only liked Severus Snape in the canon universe along with Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and Diary-Riddle on the rare occasion. It was in fanfiction and through the Man with the Gun that I began to understand this character, whom I call the Laughing Man, or the Man Who Laughed Through His Tears. I have an oddly inappropriate way of dealing with my own grief, and that is by laughing hysterically for seemingly no reason at all. I giggled (silently) through my father's funeral when I was fourteen. My relatives thought I was absolutely heartless - I am sometimes, but I was laughing because I recognized the song they were playing. It was a song by Pink Floyd, I remember. I was also laughing for other reasons I will not recount with you all, but I laugh when I'm sad. Once, a friend of mine told me his iguana died on Christmas and I laughed in his face because it was a terrible Christmas Present. The thing is, I laugh. I don't cry, not for people. I cry for my characters and their tragedies, but I never cry for my own.**

**I model this character, the Laughing Man, on my inappropriate way of dealing with things.  
**

**Russian Roulette **by Treena-Ivy Thyme Carter

**Summary: A group of twelve is seated around a round table in the dark in the dead of night. They seek to play a game. In this game, to win one must lose, to lose one must win. To play, one only has to pull the trigger. What brought these despairing souls here?**

**AN. This story is rated M for the child abuse (of **_**all**_** sorts), suicide, and rape. The rape and child abuse is not explicit to me. **

Chapter 2: Ron

The following is a quote that summarizes the Story of Ron, a Man Who Laughed Through His Tears

"_There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors."_ – Tennessee Willians

_Click_.

The laughing man looked down at the revolver that failed to deliver and handed it to the woman at his left. She looked down at the muzzle and her hands shook. She looked at him, staring, pleading perhaps. Her gaze was impenetrable, imperceptible. He looked at her, loving her with all of his heart. They were both there, together but apart. He did not dare touch her, and she never endeavored to touch him. They'd never touch now. They'd both had seen too much, lived too little, loved too much. Soon, their lives would be over. He didn't understand why the sighing man directly across from him insisted on this dark sick game. He had wanted to fill the guns with six bullets and pass it around the table until all six were wasted, and then six more for the rest of them. But his lover had insisted on allowing them a chance to back away, if they suddenly decided their life was worth living.

He had said to her at the time, even yelling, "If they truly had anything left, they wouldn't put the gun to their head at all! They'd never even think of this! They'd never do this!"

He wished he had never yelled at her, not even once. He had hoped that maybe, maybe, she would be the one to walk away from the revolver. She was brave like that. But she didn't walk away. He never asked her for her story, though she had asked him for his, he had asked his male friend his. He wondered how much he really knew his lover as he examined her alive possibly for the last time. He wanted to remember his lover alive, and yet he didn't want to die first. He didn't want to die without knowing if she was brave enough to walk away, or if she was brave enough to do it. Both acts, the walking away and the suicide itself were both rather brave in his opinion. To live a worthless, painful life while suffering in silence or to know when it is worthless enough, painful enough to silently end it.

He watched her as she put the barrel of the gun in her mouth, unwilling to ruin her face if anyone decided to give her body to her parents. Dentists, he recalled. She never wanted to disappoint them. He could understand that, even if all he had ever done in his life was be a disappointment.

He remembered what led him to this decision. He remembered being a disappointment.

...

"Ron! Ron!" his mother called to him.

He looked up at her and smiled widely, his grin was toothy, though his front teeth were missing.

She sighed and held out her hand, "Give it to me."

He waved the wand in front of him, trying to show his mummy some of his magic. She wasn't smiling for some reason. Her hand was outstretched and waiting. She knelt in front of him and put her face in his. He recoiled as she enunciated, "Give the wand to me, now!"

He tried to smile at her again, but she slapped him. His face turned completely to the side, his cheek turned red and tears welled in his eyes. He turned back and stared at her.

She yelled, "Why can't you be as well behaved as Percy, or Bill, or Charlie?" She held out her hand and said again, "Give it to me, _now_, Ronald!"

Ron looked down at his mother's wand, and shook his head. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. She was yelling furiously at him, but he didn't care. He pulled the wand up high over his head and snapped it. A gleaming white hair fell to the ground perhaps like spider silk or tears or even the first breath of snow. She tossed him on the ground yelling obscenities and he screamed in surprise and in terror. His pink, pudgy child's face reddened and the wet paths of anger and betrayal stood out in the autumn sunlight. He looked up at his mother and screamed, crying, sobbing. The splinters of wood fell from his grasp onto the ground, and a crisp bite of zephyr's breath swept past him.

His large red-rimmed blue eyes stared at the sun through his tears, begging anyone, anything to protect him from the rage of his mother. His breath was coming slowly and quickly all at once, and it was strangling out of his throat. He couldn't breath and his vision blurred. He stared at the blue of the sky, and watched as it turned almost gray in his vision and suddenly his thoughts had a floaty, not-there feel to them, as if he was flying. However he could also feel the dead yellow grass curled around his small form.

Suddenly the red haired, red-faced visage of his mother filled his vision and his screaming, briefly paused in his wonder at the sky, resumed.

He screamed until he lost consciousness.

…

"Hey, Ron."

Ron looked up at his older brothers, Fred and George. This was only a month after the incident with his mother, and he no longer spoke, but she no longer yelled. He couldn't remember exactly what happened after his head made contact with the ground, but apparently he had to go to St. Mungo's. He also knew that the family was now desperately scrambling for money, asking for help from Auntie Muriel, from Uncle Billius, from anyone. Ron remembered how during one dinner a red letter came to the table and exploded, with a distant cousin of the Prewetts - his mum's relatives - screaming obscenities about blood-traitors being undeserving of money or of magic, and that their little rat of a youngest son might be a squib (for Ron hadn't displayed any accidental magic yet), but even _he_ knew how to keep the blood-traitors in line. His mother, Molly, had looked close to tears and whispered about an Aunt Walburga.

Ron sighed and pushed his thoughts away, turning his blue eyes onto the twins. Winter had recently come upon the Burrow, and their breath was frosty in front of them. All three of the little boys were bundled up in layered hand-me-down sweaters and parkas, but they still looked like homeless vagabonds, begging for money off of the side of the road. Charlie had frightened them with thoughts of having no Christmas this year, and they didn't, not really. They had feasted of course, but the only presents the Weasley children had gotten was from relatives that pitied them. Ron hated pity.

"Wanna ride on our broom?" Fred offered him. Fred and George were six at the time. Ron had just turned four. The broom was a begrudged present from Auntie Muriel.

He nodded and gave them a half-smile. It was the first time he had smiled in a while. He grabbed their toy broom and hopped on. He flew up in the air, smiling again and for the first time in a month, he yelled, "This is awesome!"

He flew around and around, but then one of the twins called, "You're not very good are you?" It felt like his mother's slap all over again. The wind bit against his pink, freckly cheeks. His eyes twinged

The other twin laughed, "Stupid ickle Ron, guess he didn't get the family talent!"

Ron frowned at them and his smile disappeared. He looked down and noticed how high up he was. He yelped and the broom went downwards. It hit a rock and he tumbled forward, snapping his wrist. George cried out, "Our broom!"

No one ever cared if it was Ron who got hurt. They only cared for their material possessions. Mom's wand. The twins' broom. Who cared if it was their son or their brother? No one did. Not really.

He fell on his face and sat up gingerly. His red hair was a bit dirty, and his wrist was screaming at him. He began to cry at the sheer pain and looked up at his brothers, asking silently for help. And then, a brief urge to laugh over took him and giggled became mixed with his sobs as the floaty, bubbly feeling overcame his thoughts once more. He was confused and hurt and he begged help from the twins with his eyes, as he doubled over in pain and hysteria.

But help didn't come.

They were standing over him, glaring. Their faces were twinned in their anger, red and freckled. They were bigger than him, smarter, stronger. One, Fred, said, "You broke our broom."

"You're stupid!" George shouted.

Fred kicked him and Ron cried louder, laughing harder. George grabbed him by his collar and held him against the rock that snapped their broom in two. Fred punched him and broke his nose and Ron cried out, "I'm sorry."

"You will be!" Fred said to him, scowling.

Ron turned and rolled out of George's grip, and Fred bashed his fist against the rock. He fell to his knees and screamed in agony. Ron scrambled away, tripping over a root and landing on his broken wrist. He screamed another apology as he raced into the house. His mother called for him to slow down like a gentleman, but he ignored her. He wasn't a gentleman. He'd never be a gentlemen. Not like his brothers, never like his brothers.

He ran upstairs and grabbed the teddy his Great Uncle Billius gave him. The teddy was about as big as Ron himself, and nearly covered all of him. He dragged it with his good hand, but he could only fall against the side of his bed, in agony. The giggles were dissipating quickly as the floaty-feeling became all-out agony. The twins were faster than him, too, so they were right on his tail, and they raced into his room. They saw him cowering beside his bed, clutching his teddy, and they mocked him and then Fred reached out a hand and suddenly Ron felt hairy legs across his face. He screamed.

His teddy, Great Uncle Billius' gift to him, had been turned into a giant tarantula, an Acromantula. He screamed and pissed himself, backing away until his back was against the wall, and then he slipped in his own piss, knocking his head against the edge of the counter. Never good enough, not brave enough, not fast enough, not good enough, not polite enough, and finally not anything...

He had to go to the hospital then, too.

…

The one exception in his family, the only one who had never criticized him or belittled him was Great Uncle Billius, but even he had a price for his love. Ron remembered when Billius moved in with them for six months. He showered praise on Ron, and gave him gifts, and played with him. And one night, Uncle Billius…

…

_Knock, knock._

Ron groaned as he was awoken from his sleep. He hated being awoken. He was safe in his dreams. It was like the reverse of nightmare, he thought as he wandered to the door in his pants, you wake up from a nightmare and you are relieved. He always awoke into a nightmare. He didn't know that his favorite Uncle would become one of his nightmares, he wouldn't know what was wrong until much later.

He opened the door and peered into the darkness. He smiled, "Uncle Billius!"

Uncle Billius looked down at Ron, "Hello Ron, may I come in?"

Ron let him in without a thought. Uncle Billius went in and sat on Ron's bed. Ron scurried over and sat next to him. Billius smiled at him and he said, "Did I wake you?"

Ron shrugged and laughed, forgetting his nightmares about spiders, "It was nothing."

"Really?" Billius said. Ron opened his mouth to chatter about things quickly forgotten, but Billius said suddenly, "Do you want to play a game?"

"A game?" Ron said excitedly, "I love games!"

"Yeah," Billius replied, "A game."

"Is it fun?" Ron asked, "Sometimes Fred and George play a game where they hold my head under the bathwater until I pass out, and that's not fun."

Billius frowned and said, "They shouldn't do that to you. Have you told your parents?"

Ron shrugged, "They don't care. They say I'm exaggerating." Ron remembered now how innocent he was, how stupid, how naive. He hated himself for his innocence, but then again, it was quickly lost.

Billius sighed and regained his smiled, "The game is rather fun."

"How do you play?"

"Well, first you take your clothes off."

Ron smiled up at him and did so accordingly. Billius looked at him for a long moment and then he continued on with the 'rules', "And then you lay on the bed."

He remembered everything about that night. He kept wondering why he didn't hesitate, but he already knew the answer to that. It was because Uncle Billius was so kind to him, he gave him things, and he bought him brand new clothes and had Ron try them on for him. He took pictures of Ron, and played with him and listened to him talk and complimented him and for what? To gain his innocent trust? To play this sick game with him? Billius continued softly, "You spread your legs and try to relax." _Relax?_, Ron should have questioned.

Ron told him that it hurt, but Billius promised it would go away, that it was merely a part of the game. Ron stared up at him through the dark, his tears beginning to fall down his face. Billius wiped his tears away and brought them to his lips. He took off his clothes, too, and Ron watched him as he moved inside of him. It hurt. It hurt very terribly, but Billius told him to be quiet. Ron complied, the best he could. Their breathing was heavy, and Ron was crying harder and harder. Blood coated his sheets and his thighs. Billius hovered over him. And then, Billius pulled away from him and put back on his clothes. He leaned back over Ron's naked, limp body and he whispered in Ron's ear, "Wasn't that fun, Ron? I'd never play that with any of your brothers and sisters. You're special, you know that? _Special_. I love you. I love you so much. I'll always protect you." Lies. All lies.

Ron watched him leave and then he put his own clothes back on. He looked at the stains on the bed and pulled his comforter over them, but he didn't sleep that night. He put a fist to his mouth and giggled in the darkness.

Billius came again the next night, and the next and the next, and Ron never told anyone. Who would believe him? They never have before. Not when Fred and George pretend to drown him. Not when Bill curses at him. Not when his mother hits him. Not when he puts on Ginny's clothes to try and get his mother to love him. He never told.

But, Bill, his brother, had heard things through the floorboards, and he came downstairs one night with a candle in his hand. He opened Ron's bedroom door and watched as Uncle Billius fucked him. Bill backed away from the doorway and ran down the hall, horrified. He called for his parents loudly, and Billius pulled away from the boy, grabbing his wand from his clothes, but it was too late. Arthur Weasley stood in the doorway, looking from his uncle to his son. His wand was stretched out in front of him. Ron looked at his father and sat up. Pain shot through him, but he ignored it. He covered his privates and watched.

Arthur's horrified face morphed into an enraged one, "How dare you?! He is my _son_!"

Billius remained silent for a little while until he replied, sitting on the edge of the defiled bed, saying, "It's not like you care. I _love_ him."

"That's not love, you fucking bastard!" Arthur yelled, "He's my son! I love him! I love him more than anything!"

"Oh really?" Billius said casually, patronizingly, "Then why does Ron tell me about how no one believes him when the twins push his face into the bath water and hold him there until he loses consciousness? Why doesn't he hesitate to do as I tell him when we're together? You don't care about him, but I do. I _love_ him."

Arthur stared at him aghast. He turned to his son and asked, his voice quiet and almost betrayed and self-deprecating, "Is that true? That, that wasn't a joke?"

Ron looked at his bedraggled father, surprised, confused and tired, "You said I couldn't take jokes. I just thought they were joking around, and I was taking it too seriously."

Arthur was speaking solely to his son in that moment, whispering, despairing, "I care about you. I love you. I should have believed you. I should have protected you. I should have _protected you_!"

Ron looked away, pushing back hysterical laughter

Arthur sighed and turned his head back to Billius. Billius was still sitting on Ron's bed and Arthur exploded, "You get off of there, you fucking pervert!"

Billius cocked his head, saying in a weary voice, "You never did have the balls to stand up to me, Arthur. Or are you just jealous that I loved your brother more than you?"

"That is not love! And Octavius is dead! You drove him to suicide and if - if you did something like this – If I had known, I would have fucking _killed you_!"

Ron finally interrupted as Billius casually picked him up and put him in his lap defiantly. Ron looked at his great uncle and then at his father, "It's just a game. Why are you so upset?"

Arthur stared at him, horrified once more. But, then Molly entered the room and she screamed. She raised her wand and shouted curse wards about pedophiles and perverts and how she'd fucking skin him for touching her boy. Billius flicked his wand and her mouth was zipped shut. Arthur disarmed him and threw his wand across the house. Molly screamed through the pseudo-gag, waving around violently. She finally unzipped her mouth, but Arthur pointed out the hall at something Ron couldn't see. He guessed he was too stupid to figure it out, and didn't try to. She yelled at Arthur, though Ron could only remember half of it.

Ron stared at his mother, surprised at her rage. Billius clutched him close on his lap so Ron's back was pressed against his chest, Ron realized now, as a human shield. Or perhaps, he'd like to think, because he really did love him.

Ron said to her in his childish seven-year-old voice, "So you're upset, too? Why? It's just a game." Molly gasped in shock and fell out of the room, fleeing down the hall with her hand to her mouth. Weak woman.

Billius looked down at him and frowned. He pet Ron's head and Ron leaned into his hand. His eyes were sad as he said, "They are upset because men like me shouldn't play those types of games with boys like you."

"Why?" Ron asked curiously, tears long dried on his once-innocent face, "Because it hurts?"

Billius nodded solemnly, "Because it hurts. And because men and boys shouldn't play the games I play with you, only men and men, and women and women, and men and women can play those games. Because, you are a little boy, and you can't play like this until you're seventeen. And since I played the adult games with you, I have to go to… to time-out for a very long time."

"But why?" Ron asked, "What is wrong with it?"

Arthur answered him this time, tears falling down his own face, "What's wrong is that you are a child and he is a grown-up. The, the 'game' you played is only for grown-ups."

"So I'm in trouble?" Ron asked, tears welling again.

"No, only unc – Only Billius is in trouble. Because he is a grown-up and he knew the rules to the game."

It was then, that five adults in red robes Apparated into the room. One, a blonde woman in front, pointed her wand at Billius and Ron and said in an authoritative voice, "One Billius Septimus Weasley is under arrest for the assault of a child, one Ronald Billius Weasley, and one Octavius Arnold Weasley, for however many currently unknown accounts. You must surrender your wand and come with us immediately."

Billius sighed and kissed Ron's cheek. He said to Ron, "I want you to always know that I love you. You are special and you are worth it. You are special, Ronald, never forgot that."

He stood and pulled on some trousers. He turned around and smiled congenially at the blonde Auror and said, "I am Billius. I believe Arthur knows where my wand is." And three stunning spells hit him at the exact same time.

Ron stared at his great uncle as he was dragged from the room and Apparated away. Ron felt tears come to his eyes and fall down his cheek, and even to this day he does not know what he crying for: his uncle raping him several times, or that same uncle being arrested and thrown into prison for what he did. And, worse yet, he did not understand why he was hiccuping sounds that appeared to be imitating laughter.

…

But, even at school he could never live up to expectations. He never become Quidditch captain, or Head Boy – though he did get on the Quidditch team and he did become a Prefect. His Head of House never liked him, he didn't become popular, he wasn't bullied but he wasn't friends with everyone. He was a Gryffindor, but he never felt brave. He put on a bravado of arrogance and self-certainty when he was anything but. He became friends with the most famous wizard of the time, Harry Potter, but then he was overshadowed.

He never became what he dreamed he would become.

He never became anything.

He would fall in love with his best friend – both of them. Neither love was sexual, but both loves were jealous and about power. He knew that his lover loved him back, his Hermione, his everything. He knew that his other friend, his _first_ friend, his Harry also loved him dearly.

He knew that Harry, more than anyone, could understand his other love, his love for his uncle. Harry could understand all too well. Ron saw his nightmare, saw his bruises, and Harry in turn watched his nightmares and held his hand. Ron gave his first kiss to Harry in the dead of night. He lost his virginity to a man, why not his kiss to another? But, he initiated it this time, under the mistletoe a few days after Christmas when he was thirteen. He connected his lips to Harry's in the solemn darkness. Harry's eyes gleamed in the darkness. The kiss was simple, a mere putting together of lips, a brief exchange of tongues. His second kiss also went to Harry, his third and fourth and all the way to the seventh kiss went to him. Ron might have gone farther if Harry hadn't started crying. It wasn't until then that Ron as told about how Harry lost his own innocence, though it wasn't his story to tell. However, Harry's story had no illusion of love to sweeten it, and it wasn't to a blood relative either. But, Harry had not lost everything, not in Ron's opinion.

_Ron_ lost everything.

Ron lost his innocence to his uncle, he lost his safety to his brothers, he lost his mother's love to his sister, he lost every achievement he could ever have to his siblings, he lost his father's love when he asked him if he could visit Uncle Billius in Azkaban for his birthday, he lost any popularity to Harry, any intelligent pursuit to Hermione, his virginity when he was but a child; he lost his familial attachments to his mother, his love of Muggles to his father, his self-esteem to Bill, his love of animals to Charlie, his ambitions to Percy, his peace of mind to Fred, his brotherly love to George, his value of his masculinity to Ginny, and finally he lost himself to a reflection in a cursed mirror in his first year at Hogwarts.

He remembered his reflection in the mirror: himself as a man, as head boy, Quidditch captain, prefect, funny, pranking, as lively, with Hermione on his arm, and Harry cheering him on at his side. But his actual future lied in the bullet in the revolver; he was a keeper on the Quidditch team, his girlfriend became a morose, solemn, depressed Head Girl, Harry became a brooding, murderous soldier desperately hanging on by his fingertips, his liveliness died when Harry handed him the gun, any hilarity he could think of disappeared during the war, any pranking joy he ever held dissipated slowly as he reached his maturity, and his manliness – well, he was a man now, he guessed. He'd killed several men, he had their blood on his hands, so he guess that made him a man more than Uncle Billius ever did.

Ron remembered killing Death Eaters in the war. He remembered their soft gasp as the green light shot from his wand into their chests. It looked so peaceful. It was a simple breath out and then it was gone. Their souls had fled before their bodies hit ground. He looked at faces he grew up with and carelessly stole their lives away without a second thought. He, too, had become a soldier.

And now it is the time, for the soldier to have his last salute.

Ron could recall so many taunts and comparisons from everyone he had ever known.

From his mother: "Why can't you be as polite as Bill?" "Why can't you be as kind as Charlie?" Why can't you be as smart as your brothers?" "Why can't you take a joke?" "I thought you liked corn beef sandwiches." "Why don't you talk to me, like Ginny?" "Why can't you do your chores without complaining like Percy?" "Why can't you do anything right, Ron?" "Ronald, why don't you clean your face like your siblings?" "Can't you dress yourself? Your brothers could all dress themselves by the time they were _three_!"

From his father: "I wished you were more like me." "Sometimes I feel that you're not my son." "Why can't you be normal?" "Don't you want to learn about Muggles?" "Oh, Ron, not now, I'm busy." "Ron, go away." "Go to bed." "Stop bothering your brothers, Ron. You're different from them."

From Bill: "Leave me alone, ginger." "I'm studying, pipsqueak, go away." "Why did you ruin my assignment?!" "I hate you!" "You're nothing but trouble." "I wish Mom never had you!" "I wish you were miscarried!" "I'm smarter than you Ron, I will always be smarter than you." "Go play with Ginny or the twins or something." "I'm not gonna play with a baby!" "You're a baby, did you know that?" "If you hadn't been born, maybe Mom and Dad could pay for extra lessons!" "If you hadn't been born, maybe I'd have a better life!"

From Charlie: "I don't know, Ron, I don't want to play right now." "I don't know, Ron, I have homework." "I don't know, Ron, go bother one of the others!" "I'm busy, Ron, go away!" "I hate you! Now go away!" "Oh, stop blubbering, you big ginger baby!" "You know, you're not as goodlooking as me. It's quite unfortunate actually." "Oh please, _Ginny_ can throw a gnome better than that!" "I'm captain of the Quidditch Team, but I doubt you'll ever be good enough to even be on one!" "If you hadn't been born, Ron, Mom could buy me a _real_ broom and I could become a Quidditch star!" "If you hadn't been born, my life would be so much better!"

From Percy: "Ron, I'm studying, I can't help you." "Ron, I'm working, please go away." "Ron, I'm busy, leave me alone." "Leave me alone, Ron." "I'm prefect, Ron, and Mom thinks I'm going to be that last one in the family, so step up your work." "Four EE's, and threes A's? I had twelve O's, all through Hogwarts!" "Try harder, Ron." "Leave me alone, Ron." "You know, Ron, sometimes I think that life would have been so much easier if you had never been born." "Please, go away, Ron." "Goodbye, Ron."

From the Twins: "Oh ickle Ronny, you're so scrawny!" "Go away, you stupid ginger, we're busy!" "We're pranking, it's not like you could help!" "I hate you, Ron, your face is ugly!" "You broke it! You break everything you touch, I swear, Ron!" "You ugly fucking ginger!" "Bloody hell, Ron, can't you do anything, right?" "Mom should have stopped at us!" "I wish you were dead, Ron!" "Can't you take a joke, Ron?" "You're name is rather stupid. Ron. Rooon. Ronald. Ronooold. Ronnie. It's, it's just bad, you see? It's stupid. Your name is 'Stupid' now! It sounds so much better, right, Stupid?"

From Ginny: "Ron, I'm a girl, girls are different from guys." "I don't wanna play with you, Ron." "I'm busy, Ron." "Mom bought me new robes, Ron! Oh, you didn't get any. Do I look pretty?" "Girls don't play with guys." "Mom got me a new broom!" "Mom always wanted a girl, she told me!" "Mom used to wish that you were a girl, but then she had me!" "Why is Harry Potter your friend? He could do so much better!"

Harry never criticized him, Ron remembered, amending his earlier thought. Harry had never, not once, criticized him. Sure, he had yelled at him in the night, he had yelled at Ron during that terrible betrayal in fourth year, but he had never, ever belittled him. But, then again, Harry knew only too well how belittlement worked.

Ron wrote no suicide note for his family; he wrote merely a letter that was currently being carried by the owl Harry's godfather gave him, the little pygmy owl called Pigwideon – and yet, he didn't name it. Even _that _had been stolen from him.

Now it is time for the soldier's final salute.

…

His letter went:

_Uncle Billius,_

_How are you? I know your sentence will be over by the time you receive this letter, but I thought I'd share my life story with the only man that had ever loved me. You see, I have only been loved by two other people in my life, one is another boy – a boy, not a man, and the other is girl – not a woman. The boy is named Harry Potter. Yes, THE Harry Potter, and the other is called Hermione. She's a Muggle-born. He is very brave and she is very smart. Harry was my first kiss, and Hermione was my first female lover. They are my best friends. _

_You see, Uncle Billius, after you were taken away after the "old game," my life never improved. I was mocked, and ridiculed, and my family danced on eggshells around me. They never spoke of you or of your late wife ever again. Sometimes Arthur – I no longer call them mother or father, because they don't deserve the titles – Arthur comes and sits with me in the dead of night sometimes, just rubbing my head, and petting my hair - like you did before they took you. Perhaps, he believes he is comforting me? Protecting me? I don't understand it. I guess I never will. It's not like I had any children.  
_

_You see, Uncle Billius, I committed suicide last night. _

_I had several reasons: _

_My family would never miss me. By the time you read this, we'll practically be extinct. Besides, I was just a disapointment. Sometimes, I wished Fred and George had let me die during their little bath game. __I have nothing left to go home to. Sure my parents are fine I guess, but they don't love me. The only adult who has ever loved me is you. Isn't that sad? Fred, George, Percy and Ginny are coming with us to the grave anyway. It's their choice, but I wish it was just the "Golden Trio" again. That's what they call us, you know, Hermione, Harry and I._

_My life is worthless. It honestly is. _

_I'm a killer (I am, you know. I fought against the Death Eaters alongside Harry Potter. I killed seventeen wizards, and thirteen witches, and countless Muggles.) I hate myself for it. I__ think you'd understand, you were in prison with soldiers gone bad, soldiers gone wrong. Maybe I'd become one of them? _

___I don't want to live in a world so dissimilar to my innocent youth. I fought for a free world, but I can't live in one. I need to fight. I need to, because if I don't, I'll be as worthless as I feared I would be. Hermione says I have PTSD. I have terrible nightmares and sometimes I forget where I am. I don't want to wake up with my hands wrapped around her neck and her body cold and blue underneath me. I don't want to remember the faces of the women I killed. I don't want to watch children die in front of me anymore. I don't want to see Voldemort laughing at me anymore._

_Everyone I have ever loved, except you, is committing suicide alongside me, Hermione sits next to me as I write this, and Harry is cleaning his revolver; his letters have been done for years. We're doing this together. We've been together since the beginning, and Harry says it is poetic that we'll end this together, as well. It's almost as poetic as the last time we sat on the Hogwarts Express and left Hogwarts for the last time. _

_I don't want to have children. I don't want to know if I'm like you. I don't ever want to be like if I can't have them with Harry or Hermione, I don't want them at all. Anyone else is not good enough for me. They'd never understand my pain. _You_ don't understand my pain. _

_I never want to be alive in the same world where people like you can go free. I'm sorry I can't live in a world where the man who stole my innocence is still alive and free. I can't stand to know if you will make one of my hypothetical sons fall in love with you. I don't want to know if another child in the Weasley family will kill themselves because of you. Me, Octavius, we're special, right? But my sons - if Hermione wanted to give me any (even though neither of us should be around children, ever), I don't want them to be special. Not to you.  
_

_And finally, I can't stand that I still love you._

_I'll see you in Hell. Best wishes and all that rot.  
_

_Goodbye, my Great Uncle Billius._

_RW. _

Ron bowed his head as he licked the envelope and slipped it into his pocket on his way to the Public Owlrey, five hours before he entered the locked room in the darkness with a round table fit for King Arthur.

…

Far away, he heard his lover pull the trigger. He held his breath with her. _Click._ He thanked the deity he had never believed in and watched her hand the gun to his sister.

He would have reached out a hand to Hermione, except he didn't want to feel her go slack beside him when it was her turn to go again. And, he didn't want her to feel him fall if he was first. That is why he wanted Harry across the table. He didn't want to know if his instinctive reaction would be to crawl in his lap like he did with Uncle Billius, or to kiss Hermione one last time. He didn't want to know which one he loved more. He almost felt the urge to laugh again. And, hidden in the darkness, for the first time in his life, he did not hide his tears as they fell down his cheeks. He bit his lips to hold back his hysterical laughter.

That was the story of the laughing man.

That was the story of an abused, unwanted, untalented, disappointment of a soldier, because if he didn't learn to laugh, he would only cry.

And no one wants to cry on the day they decided to die; they want to smile with relief as the pain finally ended inside their battered, broken minds. They wanted the frozen feelings of despair melt under the hot bullet of a gun, hotter than a comet as it zipped through their brains, destroying everything that they were or ever would have been.

He sighed as the bullet didn't deliver. He smiled in the darkness since the bullet spared his female lover. And he didn't even dwell on his sister putting the gun and concealed bullet to her head, because the odds were against her getting the –

_CRACK!_

He gasped as the wet liquid splattered across his freckly, ugly (to him) face. He turned his head towards the chair his sister was in in her last moments. An ugly round purple hole had replaced her temple and it was grotesque in its silent, morbid beauty. Icicles shattered inside of Ron, and the shards stabbed at his heart deep inside his chest. The gun clattered to the floor beside her chair. Her pale face was tear-stained – the tears were gleaming in the candle light. Her cheeks, once flush with life were now as pale as ivory.

Every player stared as two driblets of blood slowly went down the side of her face, and one stream out of her thin nose. Her pale lips were slightly open, perhaps in surprise, or relief, or even... euphoria.

Harry sighed once more and a candle across the room went out. Ron looked at the candle in surprise, and his breath caught in his throat. The candle, snuffed out and lifeless, died, symbolizing life and death all in one blow. Harry stood and walked over to Ginny – Ginny's body, Ron corrected himself, - and he knelt down. He picked up the gun and walked back over to his chair. He sat back down, opened the chambers, picked up another of the remaining eleven bullets and he slipped it into one of the cylinders.

He was so methodical as he rolled it and finally he handed the revolver to Fred. Fred stared at his little sister's cooling body and he stared at the gun that ended her life. He chuckled against all odds, but Ron knew that inside his brother was crying. Ron chuckled one harsh laugh, and George snickered as he sniffled. Fred joked, "Well, I guess I picked one of the worst seats in the house, huh?" His face was splattered almost as much as Hermione's. Ron wondered in they, the twins, were going to vomit.

"You shouldn't laugh," said a female voice across the table. They turned their gaze to Luna Lovegood. Her lavender eyes were dry, her pale face was stoic and her mouth was frowning. She whispered in her slightly Welsh lilt, "Tis a tragedy. Most emotions are flipsides of each other, and if you allow your body to confuse emotions for certain acts, you will always be confused. Scream if you may, cry if you must, but you should never ever laugh at a tragedy. Not even if you live in one."

Fred nodded at her and his chuckle disappeared as a tear rolled down his face. He pulled the bloody muzzle of the gun to his chin and closed his eyes. He pulled the trigger.

Ron looked away.

He couldn't help but despise himself.

Even now, moments away from his own death, watching his family die, and he still managed to be a disappointment.

He couldn't help but be morbidly impressed.


	3. A Girl Too Dangerous to Live

**Russian Roulette **by Treena-Ivy Thyme Carter

**Summary: A group of twelve is seated around a round table in the dark in the dead of night. They seek to play a game. In this game, to win one must lose, to lose one must win. To play, one only has to pull the trigger. What brought these despairing souls here?**

**The Girl Too Smart to Live was introduced to me by the Man with the Gun. She reminds me of my own intelligence (yes, I am rather arrogant, get over it) and of a suicide note I read a while ago. I can't find the suicide note on the internet now, and that is really sad to me because I never knew the man that killed himself, I only knew the note he left behind. He is also somewhat the basis for the Man Who Laughs Through His Tears, because his story was also the story I told for Ron. And in his suicide note he said something about how easy it would be for a suicidal person to take the gun and point it at someone else, and that he had to kill himself both to prove his murderous intent to everyone and to protect everyone else from his wrath. ****It's easy for **_**I hate myself**_** to turn into **_**I hate you**_**, and it's easy to take the gun at your temple and point it at one of the people who **_**made**_** you pick up that gun. If you're going down, why not take them with you? And so, I was trying to find that quote for Hermione, because Hermione reminded me of myself, so smart, so lonely, so… so ruthless. **

This chapter contains rape and murder. If you found it too explicit, inform me and I will try to tone it down, but please be aware that, unlike Ron, Hermione has no reason to suppress the memories and I am only keeping her in character by being quite possibly excessively graphic.

**I have several quotes that summarize the Story of Hermione; or the Girl Too Smart to Live; yes, four, because Hermione deserves a book solely dedicated to her suicidal tendencies.**

"_I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her."_ ― Tom Leveen

"_We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire." ― _George Sand

"_A book is a suicide postponed." _― Emil Cioran (Amen to that, says the author)

"_To be or not to be that is the question." _— Shakespeare. (I had to. I _had _to).

Chapter 3: Hermione

She didn't really know why she decided to do it. She didn't understand her own story. That was one of her worst flaws. She had problems understanding herself as she was; humans, feelings, and variables such as that were so intangible to the rational minded.

She could read Shakespeare without breaking a sweat, she could analyze anything to death, she could do long division and kill without a second thought, but she didn't understand her own mind. She could name off all of the parts of brain and she had read several medical journals on psychology and psychiatry, so she knew intellectually what was wrong with her and what would fix it. But, nothing can really fix what she had. It was chronic she read. The depression. PTSD would heal with a motley of drugs every morning and therapy on a chronological, scheduled basis. Depression, normal depression, might be fixed – or at least kept in check – by antidepressants and behavioral therapy, but… it would never really go away. Nothing would. Not after everything she had seen, not after everything she had done.

And really, what she planned and plotted with her only two friends, it was for the best for everyone.

People with brains like hers weren't supposed to be soldiers. People with killer instincts like hers shouldn't be allowed to kill. People who can kill as easily as she can shouldn't be allowed to live around good people. She should be in jail, she reasoned. She was a killer. She was a conspirator. She betrayed her Ministry. And yet, she was rewarded with countless money, awards, metals, scholarships, bonds, fame, fortune, but it wouldn't satisfy her.

She was drafted into this war, this war against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. She was drafted by her own willing hand. She had read so many stories about the Jewish and the Germans in WWII; except she next expected she would be the "Jewish" and that her own classmates would be the "Germans", the "Nazis." She was practically living in a history book, but no one else understood what had to be done to fight, no one understood until they were orphaned like Harry, or destroyed like Ron.

Hermione knew what led her here, if only subconsciously. It was because smart people, people who would have become the best of doctors know every way to kill a person. And that terrified her, because she was a genius. She was literally a genius. Her IQ was literally off the charts. Her mind was as brilliant as Einstein's, but she countered her arrogance. There are a 1000 people with the same potential as Einstein, the same genius status, and yet, there is only one Einstein.

She wanted to be that Einstein. She _was_ that Einstein – except, she didn't flee the war that wanted to kill her and her kind. She was better than Einstein, smarter, more ruthless. She stayed and fought, where he fled his fate. And against all odds, she won.

But her victory wasn't sweet.

She never thought it would be.

But now, now she knows herself, she knows that she, above anyone else – except maybe Harry – will kill again, because she _likes _it. It's _fun_. It makes her feel powerful. It's like looking at every bully who had ever called her names and laughing as she pulls a scarf around their necks and pulling it tight until they lose all consciousness.

She took in a breath and remembered as she put the cold metal in her mouth. It tasted oily she noticed.

…

"Oh Hermione!" her mother said, "Bill, Bill! Come look at what Hermione did!"

Hermione looked from her mother to her father. He had dashed into the room, sure that she had done something bad for the first time in her life. Hermione smiled to herself. She was _never_ bad. She never broke the rules. She never got in trouble. She never failed. She was perfect – except for her appearance, her mommy told that that didn't matter.

He looked at his wife, "What did she do?"

Her mother, Helen (yes, yes, very ironic), smiled and waved an envelope in front of them, high above her head, "Hermione scored a 173."

"A 173?" He repeated.

Helen nodded, "A 173."

He sat down, staring at the letter, "She's _five_, Helen."

"It has her name and identification number, and her address and her birthdate."

"Are you sure you aren't reading it wrong?" Bill's condescending voice rang out.

Helen smiled, rubbing a hand through Hermione's frizzy curls, "I've been reading my own IQ scores since high school, dear. I know how to read a freaking official IQ score."

"I wasn't doubting you, honey, but… she's _five_." Bill said, aghast.

"And she's a genius!" Helen boasted.

Bill smiled and ruffled Hermione's hair and then frowned, "Isn't Leonardo Da Vinci's like 220 or something?"

Hermione's smile fell and she looked at her mother. Helen smacked Bill's shoulder, "Honey, she's _five_! I'm sure she'll be a 221 by the time she's dead."

But all she heard was that her father wasn't proud of her, he was never satisfied with what she did. Even if she was a genius, she still wasn't good enough. She _would_ be good enough, she promised, or she'd die trying. The older Hermione almost laughed at her own naiveté, and then her bitter amusement fell inside her mind when she realized she had held to her conviction. She _is_ going to die trying.

…

The first time Hermione killed, she was seven in an AP Biology Class in a private Secondary School for Gifted Children. She was the second youngest student in the class – she had taken AP Chemistry and AP Physics the year before, so she wasn't the youngest. The teacher stared at her apprehensively and at her lab partner, Morgan – a six-year-old boy – as she described the procedure today. They were going to dissect a series of animals and label all of their organs, and then compare them to a human's anatomy.

The teacher came over and whispered to them that they didn't have to do the assignment if they didn't want to. Morgan frowned and stuck out his lower lip, "But we have to. It's half our grade for the year." He glanced at Hermione sideways before saying, "I'll do it myself if I have to. I mean she's just a girl."

Hermione stiffened and she smiled at the teacher angelically, "He's just a little boy. He probably still believes in cooties. I'm willing to do it, by myself if it is needed."

The teacher sighed and brought a small toad, a limp fish, a kitten, and a worm over and laid them out in front of them. Hermione stared at the kitten and the teacher asked, "Are you sure?"

"Morgan, give me a scalpel." Hermione said to her lab partner, ignoring the teacher entirely. She nodded and left. Morgan huffed but handed her one – what a baby, she thought – and she grabbed the kitten. It was limp, drugged so it didn't move. Hermione wondered if it was conscious, if it could feel its imminent demise in the name of science, if it was afraid, if it was honored, if it had siblings and parents, if it had a future or a love. She sighed and Morgan asked her irritably, "Are you going to do it or not?"

"Read the instructions for me. It looks like I'm doing the dirty work and you're taking the notes," Hermione hissed at him as she slipped on the gloves. Her bushy brown bunches were tied back into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Morgan turned up his nose at her but read, "Slice the neck of the cat from…"

Hermione methodically slit its throat and watching as blood pooled and circled down the drain. She tied its front paws to either side of the dissection tray and wiped the blood off of its neck-fur. She made a long incision down its middle and Morgan handed her the tools to keep the skin away from her work. She looked down at the diaphragm and dictated to Morgan what to identify as she began to remove the organs. She picked up one of the intestines and dictated something. She pulled out the other organs and noticed the lack of variety of colors. Everything was brown, some was yellow like puss, some was sort of reddish but brown as well like dried blood. If she didn't dissociate, she would have vomited as soon as she cut it open, killing whatever chance it had of surviving

In fact, immediately after they were finished with the cat, she asked if she could use the restroom and didn't wait for the teacher's response. She raced to the nearest stall knelt down and spewed the contents of her lunch into the bowl. She continued expelling the bile until a cool hand reached around her head and held the hair away from her face. She looked up at the person holding back her hair and was surprised to see it was the teacher herself.

The teacher was frowning and she said, "I knew you were a cat person; that's why I didn't want you to do it. You may be excused for the rest of class."

"Do I have to be?" Hermione asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

The teacher handed her some toilet paper and she wiped her hand. The teacher cocked her head and said, "No, you do not have to be excused."

Hermione smiled, "Good, 'coz Morgan is gonna hurl if I'm not there to keep him in check. I'll be fine. I'm not a frog, worm, or a salmon person. I'm only a cat person."

The teacher smiled and rubbed her shoulders, "You'll go far in the realm of science, Miss Granger. You'll go _far_."

Hermione reentered the classroom. Several other students, both male and female had fled the classroom to vomit. Morgan was sitting on a stool staring at the lab table coolly.

Hermione put on a new pair of gloves and said, "Did I miss anything?"

Morgan sneered at her before shaking his head. Hermione smirked and said, "Well, I guess you disposed of Mr. Whiskers?"

"Mr. Whiskers?" He asked petulantly, apprehensively.

"Yeah, he was my pet cat. I donated him to the class." Hermione lied, "It was fun while it lasted. He was a good pet. I'm glad I was with him 'til the end.

Morgan stared at her in horror. His eyes welled up with tears but they didn't fall. His face turned red and he ducked his head.

Hermione picked up the salmon, removed the eye with her tweezers, grabbed her cleaned scalpel and ran it down the salmon's stomach. She continued, "At least I don't know this salmon, though I think that frog is the daughter of my pet toad, Bobby, that I donated last semester…" Morgan's hands were shaking as he took notes on the worksheet.

Hermione continued to horrify her colleague as she moved the skin of the fish aside and scooped out the eggs. She picked up the tweezers once more and removed the purple liver, the orange stomach, the pink intestine, and finally the red heart. She picked up the eye dropped and inflated the swim bladder before carefully popping it with her scalpel and removing it with her tweezers. She picked up the spoon once more and scraped out the dark-brown kidney. She turned and smiled at her lab partner, chattering on about her "donated pets."

He never sneered at her again.

And she never vomited at murder again, not even when she killed a man.

Tis the cost of perfection.

…

She accepted that she was a witch without question.

She had already done several experiments with her magic, stretching it, using it, manipulating it. She had written laws on it already and she was already composing journals about her discoveries about the next dimension. When the woman with the horned glasses gave her the letter and explained her talents to her family along with a scholarship to a new school, she was ready to do more research about her upcoming experiments.

She negotiated medical school for after Hogwarts, rather than starting on training her magic late. What could they do? _Deny_ her? She was their darling, their genius. _She_ knew what she was doing.

Five years had passed since AP Bio and she was already at University, but she could take seven years off – maybe less if she went to night school during the summer – for Magic.

Hermione read every book she could get her hands on and then she realized; maybe, for once, she'd be normal. In the Wizarding World, she wouldn't be just a genius, she'd be as new as anyone else her age, learning with them, instead of ahead of them. She'd get friends, she'd maybe even get popular – though she knew it was farfetched. She dreamed of being top of the class, of having actual peers, of befriending other girls. She dreamed of meeting a boy. She dreamed of a place where girls like Hermione were valued more than pretty ones with larger than average breasts. She dreamed of a place where she would be accepted for who she was.

Sadly, nearly all of her dreams fell through. She was an anomaly to her classmates: studying, intelligent, arrogant, and destined for greatness. She was a freak to her dorm mates, for she only cared for her books – not her hair or her face or even her teeth that she had never been ashamed of before this school. She met several boys but all of them were immature and _stupid_. She _was_ top of her class, and she was hated for it.

But…

She did make friends, though she was never truly popular. She made friends with a total of three boys: first, Neville, second, Harry, and thirdly, Ron.

She met Neville on the train to Hogwarts and she helped him find his toad, Trevor. She had also met Ron and Harry there as well, though Ron despised her for being like his brother, Percy, and Harry followed his lead, long before they followed the Boy-Who-Lived.

When she had barged into their compartment and saw Ron holding his wand at his rat, she couldn't help but vomit what she had learned on them. She would never realize that some people were discouraged when other learned faster than them, let alone display their great knowledge without reticence. Sometimes, Hermione wished she had never been born a genius, so maybe, just maybe, she could have known, she could have been raised around _normal_ children, maybe she would understand failure, maybe she would be able to cope with the stress of people her own age, and maybe, just maybe, she might have learned how to make friends.

However, she was not born not-a-genius.

She had never known how life would be if she was not-a-genius.

And finally, she never wanted to know how life would be if she was not-a-genius.

She could remember being sorted, sitting apprehensively on the three-legged stool (and it was a bit imbalanced she remembered; wizards are _not,_ by any means, good engineers), and waiting, pleading for a sorting not defined by her intelligence. She begged for Gryffindor, pleading for anything but Ravenclaw, the house of the intelligent and witty. She wanted to be known for being friendly, or helpful, or even ambitious, just not freaking smart. She wanted to be brave and bubbly like the Gryffindors, happy and amicable like the Hufflepuffs, even ambitious and fighting like the Slytherins, just anything but being simply "a genius."

The Hat whispered into her ear, condescending and comforting all at the same time, "Are you sure, genius? I mean, in Ravenclaw you would be _great_, you would be _safe_, you would be among your _peers_, you would be around people who value _ingenuity _and_ intelligence_ like _they_ have never appreciated before, and you would have a _bright_ future there. You would become _perfect _there, and maybe, just maybe, your father would _love_ you, because even in the _Wizarding_ World you would be a genius, and here, you would be the best, you, and only you, would become our world's Einstein, our world's Newton, our world's Galileo. And you would be _remembered_."

"But I don't want just that," she whispered back tentatively, defiantly, "I don't want to be just that smart girl, just that _Ravenclaw_. I don't want to be around people who could be as smart as me, because I _will_ be better than them, and they will hate me. At least if I'm known for something other than my IQ score, then maybe I would be," her mental voice dropped down to a whisper, "_happy_."

The Hat sighed in her ear, "You're a brave one then, and ambitious too, and I can _feel_ your loyalty begging for anyone to latch onto. If I intentionally into a house you were not meant for, you will lose something. Would you like me to tell you what you would lose if you chose something outside of your _true_ house?"

Hermione nodded underneath the wide brim of the ancient hat. The Hat whispered to her, "If I sent you to the house of the ambitious serpents, you will lose trust. No one will ever trust you, and you, in response, will learn never to trust anyone outside of yourself. Your lonely loyalties will be abused and used against you. Your heart will be lost in endless power plays; your baby killer-instinct will be molded into a valuable weapon; you will never gain friends; you will never be respected; you will use your mind for warfare and destruction, simply because it will become more powerful than friendship. And eventually, you will be remembered for your ruthlessness, your Dark intelligence, your seductive prowess, and finally, however many people you killed as you rose to power as only a student."

Hermione gasped under the hat and let out a shuddering breath.

The Hat went on, "If I sent you to the house of the loyal badgers, you will lose respect. No one will respect you, for they see the badgers as weak-willed puppets, unable to do anything of value. Inside of Hufflepuff, you will quickly be seen as the go-to-girl for the answers and study-help. You will never be without friends, though you will never truly see them as your equals, for you know that you are better than them. You will never have to do a group-project solely by yourself in the library, in the dead of night.

"However, you will understand your remarkable difference from them, and the ambitions that will not cultivated in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, will overtake you. You will quickly become a leader among the Hufflepuffs, molding their young hearts to be only loyal to you and your power and your intelligence.

"You will eventually, by the time you are thirteen, become known as a brave, intelligent leader among the badgers. You will be the poster-girl for Hogwarts, willing to advertise to the other Wizarding schools everything that has been good here, but you will also represent everything wrong with my school. The division between certain personalities will eventually tear apart your own loyalties, releasing your inner dark desires, and you will form your own cult by the time you are fifteen.

"Eventually, you will rediscover the lost magicks of old, and rise as a strong political leader with your own political party, and then you will slowly but surely take control of the Ministry by the time you are eighteen. By the time you are twenty-one, the entire Wizarding World will be enslaved to you. You will never know love, or family, or success, or anything positive by then. And finally, at the age of forty-one, you will commit suicide."

Hermione whispered back, aghast, "How can you be so sure?"

The Hat ignored her, "If I send you to the brave lions, you will lose safety. You will, at first, be alone and misunderstood. Soon, you will be thrust into the face of danger, and in the face of your death, you will meet your first true friends."

Hermione's eyes widened. This was the first mention of her ever actually befriending people.

The Hat continued, "With these friends, your own bravery will come to the surface. You will forever be seen as the most intelligent girl – you will never escape that – but you will learn to cherish your own fame. Your loyalty will be to your true friends and to no one else. You will willingly sacrifice yourself for them, and they you, but you would also kill for them, willing to do anything to keep them forever. Eventually you will be pulled into a precious, precarious battle between good and evil, dark and light, Black and White, and yet you, and only you, will see the grey between.

"You will fight, and eventually, I have faith that you will win, for you would never accept being anything less than perfect. In Gryffindor, you will learn perfection, and perfection is only grey, my dear." The Hat sighed, "And yet, your own darkness will destroy you no matter where you go."

Hermione blinked, her eyes welling with tears, "May I choose?"

"You can always choose, young genius," The Hat replied, suddenly weary, "Everyone, even someone as Dark as you, has a choice, though yours might be a bit more precarious and less about wrong versus right, and more about yourself. So, choose. We do not have much time; a long sorting is always a mark of a Dark Witch."

"Really?" Hermione replied, suddenly excited, "Tell me about that."

The Hat growled at her and she returned to herself. She frowned down into her lap before replying, "Gryffindor. I want, more than anything, to have friends."

"You want," the Hat replied, "to be perfect. Perfection is all you'll ever need, young Hermione. I hope your Neoptolemus or Orestes will learn to value perfection as much as you do in GRYFFINDOR!"

…

Hermione now, with the gun resting on her tongue nearly smiled at the thought of her sorting, but the smile quickly faded as she continued to recall her life.

…

When she was in that room, with that troll so long ago, she had tasted Death reaching out for her.

She remembered staring at it, twelve-feet-tall to her short four-foot even, she remembered pressing her back against the cobble-stone wall of the bathroom, she remembered breathing hard, her heart beating against her chest so hard that her ribs felt like they might crack from the pressure, and she felt Death embrace her.

She could remember the shame and humiliation she felt from Ron sneering that she had no friends because she was a bossy, busybody with no respect for people who do learn as fast as her. It wouldn't have hurt her so much if she wasn't trying so desperately to be accepted as the Gryffindor she chose to be.

She stared up at his bulbous nose, his droopy brown eyes, his grey pitted skin, his drooling mouth, his long arms and short legs, the large club thing trailing behind him, the loincloth between his legs, and she shuddered as several morbid facts about rape and murder by trolls rolled threw her minds. Perhaps, she begged desperately, he wouldn't recognize her as a female?

He grumbled nonsense at her and leaned forward with one arm outstretched. She screamed loudly, a high-pitched shriek of pain, anger and sadness, a wail of disappointment and sorrow, a melancholic song of misfortune, and she _saw _Death form in front of her.

Death was rather short, she remembered. He was also very young. He was clothed in a silky ivory robe embroidered with black swirls, butterflies, eyes and poppy flowers. His skin was a pure alabaster white; his hair was a thick, curled black and it fell around his chin like a veil in itself; his eyes were wide, sorrowful, blood red and ringed in thick black (like the pierced "emo" hooligans her mother complained about). His face was round with a few hard features insinuating he himself was Hermione's age. A poppy flower wreath surrounded his forehead, and his hands were slightly outstretched in front of him with an inverted torch in front of him and a hearth carved into a butterfly at the end of it. He stared at her, waiting patiently for her to come to him.

She stared at him and he opened his mouth, perhaps to say something comforting, but the only sounds she heard were of the troll's grunts. Death frowned and a tear fell down his cheek. Hermione sighed as her own tears fell. _At least_, she thought, _she won't die alone._

Suddenly the large door behind the troll opened to show two little people, one with red hair and the other with messy black. She nearly cried in her relief. Death, the child, looked at her and then looked at them. She stared at him, glaring really, and in her mind she shouted, "You can't have them."

He looked back at her and then at them.

Hermione didn't pay attention to what the boys were doing, silently battling the apparition in front of her.

From the shadows, from the corner of Hermione's eye, a pale, slender hand emerged from the darkness. Hermione turned and stared at the shadows in earnest. Death ran past her, headlong into the shadows – no, not shadows – into a woman. Hermione gasped.

She was staring at her own mother, no, at _herself_. The woman of the shadows had skin as pale as Death, her eyes were almond-shaped like Hermione's, her face was Helen's, her hair was Bill's, except that it seemed to be more under control, her eyes were shadowy and red and as rimmed as darkly as the boy's. She was very womanly, she noted. Hermione blushed at the representation of her future: wide hips, generous larger-than average breasts, a proportional waist – not small like a model's, but perfect sized for the body of the slightly larger woman.

The woman, Nyx, Hermione realized, was clothed in a dark gauze-like wrap that wrapped around her like a Greco-Roman _stola_. Her _fibulae_ were carved into little suns and poppies and butterflies. Her feet were bare. She nodded at Hermione just once. The boy hugged his mother, appearing even shorter next to her. The boy, Thanatos, Hermione realized, smiled at her, and from the shadows, another boy appeared with a fist rubbing one of his eyes and a poppy-wreath around his head as well. An amulet hung from his neck and his bleary eyes found Hermione's. He grabbed his mother's dress and tugged it. Nyx smiled down at Hypnos, picked up Thanatos with ease and the three disappeared into the shadows. Hermione mused to herself as her fear chilled in the night: Thanatos, Hypnos and Nyx – a family of Death, Sleep and Darkness.

This would not be her final encounter with the Dark family.

Tis the cost of perfection.

…

Again and again they saved her, like a damsel in distress. It was barely payment enough that she lied for them. Everything, _everything_, the Hat said was coming true.

When the teachers discovered the troll in the bathroom, she took the blame.

When Neville tried to stop them, she stepped forward and did what she had to, unthinking, uncaring, _ruthless_.

When she and her boys fell down the trap on the third floor, she sacrificed Ron and herself to get Harry to his final battle.

In second year, she stole from the Potions master and brewed an illegal, controlled substance in the same bathroom where she met Death. She threw herself in front of the basilisk, leaving the clues for them to find out what happened to her, and finally she realized her willingness to put others in danger, for the safety of her Neoptolemus and her Orestes.

In third year, she broke out a convict from Death Row to protect Harry's state of mind.

In fourth year, she broke the rules for an ancient magically-binding tournament to save her friend.

In fourth year, she met a boy who seemed to appreciate the looks she was growing into, the looks of Nyx.

In fourth year, she lost the last vestiges of her innocence.

In fourth year, she met Death again.

In fourth year, she killed again.

Tis the cost of perfection.

…

"Do you want to come visit my home in Bulgaria?" Viktor asked her.

"I'd love to!" she said quietly. That day, so long ago, was just after Cedric's death and memorial, and it was the day she was to return home for the summer and he was to return to Bulgaria. They had become good friends over the course of the year, and had even become a bit closer. Plus, she thought, it was fun to make Ron jealous of Viktor, and in turn make Harry jealous of her making Ron jealous of her boyfriend. Honestly, did Harry have to be so obvious about his love for Ron?

She sighed at the thought of Harry's most prized thing being her other dear friend, but then again, she was Viktor's so who was she to judge?

It was so easy to convince her parents to allow her to go to a foreign country. How naïve were they, how proud of their genius daughter, she would never do anything stupid, never do anything wrong. They had trained her too well, training her to be _perfect_. How could someone as smart as her, as well-rounded as her, as experienced as _her_, ever make such a colossal mistake?

The plane ride was a blur and so was finding Viktor and his father and brother at the station. She had smiled so brilliantly at them, not knowing that it would be one of her last. Viktor introduced her, but the Krums only grunted at her. She ignored it because she had grown used to prejudice towards her for being a mudblood, and spoke softly to Viktor about inconsequential things she no longer remembered. She followed them to a secluded area and they Apparated to the Krum chateau. Unlike Harry, she enjoyed Apparation and found it exhilarating.

Mr. Krum welcomed her finally as they entered the house. His voice was very gruff and low. He asked her to call him Anton and she did. He grimaced at her, perhaps in an attempt to smile. She smiled innocently back at him. _So innocent_, Hermione sneered in her head, _too innocent_. She should have picked Hufflepuff or Slytherin that day so she'd never have innocence to lose. Viktor's brother nodded at her and introduced himself as Boris. She had smiled at him too and tried to appear congenial and welcoming. Viktor's mother swept out of the kitchen with unparalleled grace and Hermione looked upon her in awe. She had not come to the station to greet Hermione, and that should have been her warning bells.

The mother stared at her and did not smile as she whispered in broken English that her name was Eva. Hermione, who at the time had been learning Bulgarian, switched languages and introduced herself in their native tongue. Her accent was off, but they all smiled at her anyway.

Anton was a rather stocky, short man at five foot two compared to Hermione's average five foot seven. Boris was slightly taller than his father at five foot four. Viktor took after his mother at five foot ten. Eva was six foot even. Anton had dark, straight, slightly greasy hair, an oily tan face, a large black mustache, bushy eyebrows, beady black eyes and hairy knuckles. Boris had curly black hair that fell to his shoulders, a tan gaunt face, spidery fingers, thin eyebrows that were too close together, small dark eyes and a slightly slouching posture. Eva was tall, slim, gaunt, pale and was that cruel-pretty that older woman were when they were pretty as teenagers but had aged badly over the years; her dull blue eyes never looked anyone in the eye and her hands shook. Viktor had straight black hair, round blue eyes, a tan slightly leathery face, thick but proportionate eyebrows, broad shoulders and a proud posture.

Well, he had a proud posture around Hermione. In the presence of his family, he slouched and did not smile.

Eva said that dinner was ready in Bulgarian and they all proceeded to the elaborate kitchen table. The table was, oddly enough, a triangle shape. It had a white embroidered cloth, dishes of food, china plates at every seat and candles in the middle. Viktor pulled out a chair for her and Hermione sat, beaming up at her boyfriend. He gave her a quick smile and she accepted it with little suspicion, assuming he was just awkward about introducing his mudblood girlfriend to his pureblood parents.

She graciously thanked Eva for cooking such a luxurious, lavish meal, but Eva, for the first time that night, looked up at her with terribly frightened blue eyes. She sharply shook her head, but it was already too late.

Anton chuckled but it was a dark, stagnant sound. He muttered loudly that the mudblood had no taste. Hermione's face reddened and she nearly stood up to shout at him about prejudice, but Viktor grabbed her arm under the table and forced her to remain seated. Hermione turned her heated gaze upon her boyfriend, but he wasn't looking at her.

Meanwhile, Anton had lumbered forward and said that the dinner was terrible, his meat had been burnt, the gravy was undercooked, the house was a mess, his wife was an idiotic wench who couldn't do anything right, and finally he raised his hand to hit her. Hermione finally blew her top and yanked her thin arm out of Viktor's grasp. She thrust herself in between the small, broad-shouldered and the cowering, gaunt woman behind her. His slap hit her cheek with a resounding smack. Her face turned all the way to the side, but she was not deterred as her cheek reddened. She yelled at him, "You fucking piece of crap! How dare you treat your wife like that? Especially in front of guests! Are you such a lowlife as to – "

He smacked her again and said, "You're no guest of mine! You are filthy mudblood! I have no idea as to why my son brought such a common girl as you to our noble house!"

Hermione yelled back, "Maybe because he loves me! Maybe if you weren't so bent on proving that you were powerful by hitting your wife, you would know what love is!" Eva reached a shaking hand forward and rested it on Hermione's shoulder. Hermione looked at her immediately and said, "It's alright, I won't let him hit you."

Eva shook her head at Hermione, though she was smiling a sad smile. Viktor leaned forward and grabbed Hermione by the wrist and jerked her out of the room. He thrust her against the wall in the hallway and whispered harshly in her ear, hurriedly, worriedly, "Mother is a bit unstable, and it makes Father tired, and she had a bad spell recently. He just drank a little. He was just drunk, it's alright Herm-I-o-ninny, it was an accident. You shouldn't have gotten involved. It was only an – "

Hermione didn't bother to whisper, saying quite loudly, "Of course I should get involved. If he is so stupid as to get drunk enough to hit his wife for no reason at all, or worse for something beyond her control, then maybe he should not be married nor have children." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Viktor. Does he hit you when he is drunk? You or Boris?"

Viktor's blue eyes were wide in surprise.

"Does he?" she asked sharply, "Cuz I will fucking kill him if he does." She wondered if he knew that she was perfectly honest with him when she said that.

Viktor shook his head, grabbing her wrists and holding them gently. He whispered, gentle once more with his tone, "Of course he doesn't hit us. We, we are men. He would never hit a man."

"So only women then?" Hermione snipped, "Maybe you should have told me that."

"I," Viktor looked terribly disappointed and Hermione almost felt guilty, "I wanted you to come for the summer. I didn't think he'd drink. He said he had quit."

Hermione touched her burning cheek and said, "Well, don't let him drink again."

Viktor sighed and smiled at her, "We have made up a room for you."

Viktor led her down the hall and up the stairs to a large room at the end of the corridor on the third floor. She looked out the window and exclaimed how beautiful it was. He smiled at her, but did not comment. He said that they had provided clothing for her, ignoring her when she said that she had brought her own. He said he would be pleased if she wore some of the clothing they had bought her the next day, ignoring her completely.

The talked about books into the night, and then Viktor left her to sleep.

In the middle of the night, she was jerked awake by a familiar hand.

"Eva?" she whispered, surprised. She blinked blearily into the darkness, and a candle illuminated a face barely a foot from her own. "Eva!" Hermione said, suddenly alert, "Are you alright?"

Eva touched a finger to Hermione's lips, "Be silent" she whispered, "If you want to survive, you must go immediately."

"You can speak English?" Hermione exclaimed.

"Shh!" Eva hissed, "As long as they do not know what they do not know, then I will survive. If you want to live, you will _go_ immediately. Take your things and escape."

Hermione frowned, "Are you threatening me?"

"No," Eva said simply, "But they do. If you want to live, you will go. If you want to end up like me, well…" She whispered something in Bulgarian that Hermione did not know how to translate yet. Eva blinked and whispered once more, "You will end up like me if you stay."

"Viktor told me that Anton was drunk." Hermione whispered, "Are you saying he lied?"

Eva chuckled darkly, "Anton was not drunk. When he is drunk, he is kind."

"Viktor wouldn't lie to me," Hermione insisted, "And you're crazy. Viktor said you had a bad spell recently."

Eva stared at her, chestnut curls shrouding her beautiful cheekbones. She simply nodded, "Very well. You have lost your chance for escape from Hell. I hope the gods have mercy on your soul, because you will need it. I shall pray for you later. _Cogi qui potest nescit mori_."

Hermione shook her head, "You _are_ crazy. Please, go back to bed, Eva."

Eva nodded and blew out the candle, her face worn and sad, her blue eyes were old and weathered, knowing and tragic.

The next morning, Eva was gone.

Anton blundered into the kitchen and yelled, "Eva, where are you, you stupid bitch?! Where is my breakfast?!"

Hermione glared at him and he scowled.

Boris lumbered into the kitchen, grunting; it was too early for him to be polite. Viktor politely followed and greeted Hermione with a kiss on the cheek. Viktor looked around the deserted kitchen, and at the bare table before asking, "Where is Mother?"

"She came into my room last night," Hermione mentioned. Anton spun around and Boris glanced at her. Viktor stared at her. Hermione shrugged and continued casually, "You were right, Viktor, she _is _crazy. She threatened my wellbeing and said that if I wanted to live, I would leave and then she spoke in Latin to me."

"What did she say?" Viktor asked in his accented voice, wrought with something that sounded suspiciously like apprehension, fear or worry.

Hermione looked at him and said, "Something like Cog-ee kwee potest nes-kit moree? It was odd."

Anton muttered something presumably derogatory under his breath and Hermione glared at him. Boris chuckled and Viktor frowned, "It is from the story of Herakles." A single sense of doubt niggled at her brain, but she forcibly pushed it away.

"Do you mean Hercules?" Hermione asked, soothing her mind's suspicions, "If it was from Herakles, it would be in Greek."

Viktor smiled and said, "My genius. I love you." He leaned forward and kissed her softly. _Tis the cost..._

She pushed him away playfully and said, "Well, I guess I'll make breakfast." It wasn't until later that she realized, he did not translate the quote for her. _Tis the cost..._

And during the night, she reviewed the Latin in her eidetic mind and whispered to the darkness, "She who can be forced has not yet learned how to die."

She turned onto her side and whispered, "What could it mean?" before she simply fell asleep.

The next morning, she cooked breakfast again, then lunch, and then dinner. The next, she cooked. The next, she cooked. The next, after she cooked, Anton asked her to clean the house. Her face grew so hot and red and that Viktor led her out of the room and begged her to do it. She told him that it was rather presumptuous of his father to ask her to clean a house that was not her own when she was a guest. He tried to mollify her by telling her that his father was old fashioned, but that only made her tell him that his father needed to get with the times. Viktor had sighed despairingly and said that he only wanted her to have fun in Bulgaria, which made her feel guilty. She pushed the guilt away and asked Viktor to take her on a date.

Funny, she couldn't even remember the date now, only that it was fun. She cannot recall what they did, or if they ate, or what they talked about. She had felt content for the last time in her life. When they returned home, she cooked dinner begrudgingly and proceeded to her room.

She read for a while before going to shower in the bathroom adjourning her room. The water was a bit too hot and made her skin flush. For the hell of it, she had rubbed that hair potion into her frizzy (imperfect) curls, brushed it out and then curled it neatly. She brushed her teeth, twice, with whitening solution, and then tightening solution – to tighten her gums up. Though she know all of the facts and statistics, she still forgot to brush her teeth occasionally, and she absolutely abhorred flossing and the taste of toothpaste – even if there are twenty supposed flavors they all tasted like mint, with varying strengths of the minty flavor. Afterwards, she had cleansed her face of the daily oils and went back to the room in a towel. With an adjourning bedroom, she had forgotten to bring her clothing in with her.

It was ultimately the biggest mistake of her life. How would she have known he had been waiting there for her? How could she have known? Shouldn't she have known? Tis the cost of perfection.

"Herm-I-oh-ninny?" his voice said, "Father wanted you to – " His small dark eyes widened and then a smirk widened across his face. She had squealed and turned to hide in the bathroom, but he had grabbed her arm and covered his eyes with his hand. His face was almost as red as hers as he said, "Sorry. I didn't realize you were not clothed, or perhaps…" He dropped his hand, but tightened his hold on her arm. She was jerking backwards, perhaps saying something about leaving a lady to dress, but he talked over her, "Perhaps, you were hoping I was Viktor? Or maybe you were hoping it _was_ me?"

She shook her head and said, "Please, I have to dre – " He leaned closer, attempting to brush his lips to hers, "It's all right," Boris whispered, "Viktor is running an errand for Father. He never has to know, yes?"

She gasped as he suddenly spun and thrust her on the bed. She spun around very quickly, losing hold of her towel. She said, "Leave me alone!" as she scrambled to hide her bared breasts, but Boris pushed her wrists down on either side of her head. She screamed, begging, "I love Viktor very much, if you do so kind please leave me be I won't tell him about this! Please, leave me alone!"

"It is alright," he assured her with a shark-like grin, "We share everything in this family."

She shrieked, "Let me go!"

"Shut her up," Anton called from downstairs. She turned her head towards the closed bedroom door and shrieked, but Anton ignored her and Boris smacked her. She raised her freed wrist and attempted to summon her wand, but he grabbed her wrist and held it back down, clutching it against her other wrist above her head in his spidery left hand fingers.

Tears were in her eyes and she was shaking her head, "Please, let me go. Please, I never did anything to you. _Please_." Tis...

He kissed her neck and she thrashed her head. His other hand grabbed her neatened curls and smashed her head against the headboard. He said, "Father does not like to be disturbed while he is reading, please try to be quieter. Father and Viktor like how quiet you normally are. Don't act like you didn't want this, like you weren't provoking me, provoking us." ...the cost...

"Shut up!" She screamed, "You're a liar! You're sick! Leave me alone!" ...of her perfection...

He smacked her again and undid his belt, unzipped his trousers and pulled out his penis. She was sobbing, begging, pleading, but he didn't care. She bargained with him, begged him to stop, tried to fight, but without magic, without a test, she was a just an ordinary girl. She was worthless, average, _weak_; reduced to a sobbing, bloody, pleading mess, unable to fight, to think, or even feel anymore inside of her dying heart. He forcibly spread her knees, saying things that she can't even recall because she was sobbing so loudly. _It burned_, she recalled, _you would never believe how much it burned when he forced it inside of me, so quickly, so painfully. I was nothing but a fucktoy. A doll, a screaming sobbing mess of a porcelain doll. I had begged, and pleaded, but he didn't care. No one cared about me. Not when I had lost my perfect innocence.  
_

When it was inside the first time the burning pain turned all of her thoughts and planned into a white, hot ash as she threw her head back, mouth open in a silent scream. He grabbed her bare left breast in his right hand and held it tightly, rubbing his long, yellow nails over her brown nipple, scraping them. He began to thrust, humping her really, barely pushing in and out of her. Hot tears, the last of her purity, were expunged as they trailed down her red face. He hadn't even undressed to give her the courtesy of seeing a man's body before she died, because surely she would die from the pain? Surely she would die from the fire between her legs, or of the tightening around her heart as her innocence was ripped from her? The thrusting, the shark-smile, those beady black eyes, those spidery fingers bruising her wrists, scraping her chest; they had had several conversations the few days before, even coming to the point where she would maybe consider him an acquaintance – to her, acquaintances were almost-friends, almost as good, almost as valuable, just as usable. She wasn't about to kill for him like she would have for Harry, Ron or even Viktor.

She stared up at him unseeingly through her betrayal, through the agony. _She had been a virgin,_ her mind repeated as he thrust in and out of her, _she _had_ been a virgin_, _she _was_ a virgin._ It wasn't as if she had any illusions of purity until marriage, or even if sex was linked to purity until that choice was taken away from her by the older brother of her boyfriend. She had intended to lose her virginity to Viktor over that summer anyway, but this – even if she knew the statistics, she had never thought that she would be one of them.

She recalled as tears went down her face, in a vain attempt to suppress the pain: _1 in 5 women in Wales and England will be the victim of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault pertaining to rape of the vagina or forced sodomy of the mouth or anus. 60,000 to 95,000 people are the victims of attempted or successful sexual assault each year. Only 15,670 of those sexual assaults are reported to the police. 3,850 of those cases go to a court, out-of-court disposal, or are at least recorded as crimes. 2,910 of those cases go to court at all, with the rapist facing a jury and a judge. Only 1,070 rapists are convicted of the crime. 10% of the sexual assaults were done to men, who rarely if ever report it for it is "demeaning." This demeaning nature is false, and the victim must be disabused of that notion. Rapists rape for a feeling of power, not for lust, or because the victim either provoked him or "wanted it". It is very difficult for a case of rape to go to court because the remains of rape are also the remains of consensual sex, and the injuries caused by both can be explained away or even nonexistent depending on the resilience of the victim's body. This differs from murder cases, since in murder cases there is almost always a heavily damaged body, while in a rape case the body of the victim can look entirely undamaged. Male bodies are more likely to be damaged in sexual assault of the anus due to a ripping of the–_

Suddenly the burning feeling intensified tenfold and Hermione screamed. She had finally fainted from the agony and Boris left the room.

When she awoke, Viktor was sitting at her bedside and she was naked beneath the blanket. She took one look at him and nearly burst into tears. He would not look at her as he quietly said, "I did not wish to violate your privacy any more than _he_ did, so I could not clothe you. I am sorry." _Perfection lost_, a broken child whispered in her mind.

She held her breath so that she wouldn't sob. She was not in pain anymore; in fact, the pain had ended when Boris had pulled out of her. She stared at Viktor and then recalled what Boris said, whispering, "Bo – _he_ said that you shared everything. Is that true?" Her voice barely heightened with the question.

Viktor looked up at her in shock before dropping his eyes. She had sat up and the blanket had fallen down her chest. She gasped in horror and jerked the blanket back over her. She looked down at her red, bruising breast and then at her small purple wrists from under the blanket, hiding them from Viktor's view.

He whispered, "No, no it is not true." He went to the dresser and pulled out a dress she had never seen before – one of the ones they had bought her – and gave it to her.

Hermione touched her sticky face gingerly before asking him, "Does your family share everything? Did they do that to your mother, to Eva?"

Viktor looked at her sadly before shaking his head, "I don't know. I am the – uh – what was it? The lamb of the family?"

"Black sheep?" She offered dully, "You did not fit?"

He nodded, "I am the black sheep of the family. I-I wanted to fly and be famous instead of running the family business or taking a Wizengamot seat for my father, or marry a pure witch. I wanted to be," he paused to put his head in his hands, "I wanted to be special. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to meet a Muggle or a mudblood – uh, muggle-born – and understand them. I wanted to be free. I wanted to fall in love instead of marrying out of convenience or alliance." His voice broke, "I wanted to make me happy instead of my family."

Hermione stared at him apathetically, "Can you turn around while I dress?"

He nodded and did so. I_t was a pretty dress_ she thought when she looked at it. It was red and went to her knees. It had long poofy white sleeves with slits in them so that her arm was bare anyway. The neckline was straight and would frame the tops of her cleavage like a picture frame. It had a sewn in petticoat. She walked to the dresser and searched for underwear, but it seems that the family had "forgotten" to provide any. She looked down at the dress and sighed. She asked Viktor, "Where are the clothes I brought here?"

Viktor went to turn, but she told him to keep his back to her. Viktor bowed his head and said, "Father said that you did not want them anymore, so he had me dispose of them."

Hermione wanted to feel anger, but only rigid coldness froze her dead heart even more so in her chest. _Safety lost._ She sighed and slipped on the dress before allowing Viktor to see. The dress also had a built-in corset so that her breasts were supported like a push-up bra. It was rather uncomfortable and squeezed her waist and in the corner of the room, in the shadows, a familiar face appeared.

She smiled sadly at the visage of herself, of Nyx, and turned back to Viktor, spinning slightly, "Do you like it?"

Her voice was hollow, but Viktor did not seem to notice. It wasn't as if she could leave. First off, she could not Apparate. Second of all, she couldn't get a portkey. Thirdly, her plane tickets were for a month from then. Fourthly, every person in that house was registered to do magic except for her, they could keep her captive for the rest of her life. And fifthly, she didn't have any Muggle money or means to transportation.

She followed her boyfriend – her captor – out of the room and cooked breakfast. She set the triangular table and served it. Anton smiled at her and Boris came down. She stared at him in horror, in abject terror, in hatred and went to leave, but as she was walking out of the room, Anton grabbed her wrist. She tried to jerk her wrist out of his hold, but she couldn't. She looked pleadingly up at Viktor, but he was merely looking down at his plate, and eating his eggs silently. She whispered, "Please, you asked me to clean the house yesterday."

"Take a break," Anton ordered and dragged her into his lap. She shuddered with her back to his chest. He chuckled and said, "So you finally decided to wear the clothes we so graciously provided for you."

She looked down into her lap and said quietly, "Yes…" she paused and added, "Sir." _Power lost._

He stood her up in front of him and she went to leave again, but he grabbed the skirt of her dress and lifted it, smacking her bottom. She jerked around and fell on the floor. He laughed at her and dismissed her. She scurried to her feet and ran out of the room. _Perfection lost..._

That day she cleaned the house. That night, she would not go to sleep. Viktor came into her room and put a chair in front of the door. He sat in the chair and said, "They cannot come in as long as I am here."

She glared at him in the darkness, but her face was invisible in the shadows. She looked at Nyx in the corner of the room and did not sleep.

The next day, she cleaned again, and cooked, and did laundry – by hand. They did not own a washer or a dryer. Viktor would stare at her with such a depressed face that she thought that she was supposed to feel guilty or sympathetic. Since Boris, she hadn't felt anything.

She cleaned again, scrubbing on hands and knees, washing the windows with practiced ease, scouring the house for exits, for hidden passages, for weapons. So far she had found nothing. Finally she understood Eva's words to her: _She who can be forced has not yet learned how to die._ She who can be raped and feel violated, does not yet understand how to lose herself. Hermione was quickly beginning to understand.

Finally, when Viktor had to go out again during dinner nearly a week after the incident, she had locked herself in the bathroom in the guest room where she was staying. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her cheek on her knees. The frills of this dress were itchy. She wanted to take it off, but if she did… if she did…

She wished they hadn't destroyed her clothing. Thankfully she hid her wand with her toiletries, but she was stupid enough to hide her technically illegal battle potions in her clothing. Her clothes were gone, and with that was her best chance at escaping. If she had those smoke potions, those poisonous bottled gases, those sedatives, those explosives, those poisons, and even her emergency cyanide potion. She had left her emergency cyanide potion with the clothes she was going to dress in after her shower, before Boris… The cyanide potion was small and purple, in a pill-shaped plastic container that would be easily shattered by her teeth.

She remembered Viktor telling her about his father's extensive torture devices and gun collection that he collected from Muggles. A history fanatic, he had called him. If she could find that room, all of her problems would be solved.

"_Alohomara._" Anton said outside of the bathroom door. Hermione stood and flushed the toilet – as if she had just innocently used the restroom, instead of contemplating suicide. She was unafraid to say the word: _suicide_: "Sui" from the Latin for "you, yourself"; "Cide" from the Latin for "kill, murder, end." She understood exactly what she had wanted; this was why she had created the cyanide potion. For if she was ever captured by the Death Eaters, by Voldemort, she understood what could happen to her; after all, abortion for a rape-baby is the only legal type of abortion in the outdated Magical World. She had _understood_ the likelihood of that happening to her as a poor, mudblood girl that thought to rise above her "rightful" place, but at the hands of her boyfriend's brother? _Perfection lost._

How could she have been so foolish? Was it something about her? _Did_ she provoke him?

She opened the door to Anton. Anton had had his hand on the knob and was turning it, and her sudden appearance slightly startled him. "Good evening," she said.

Anton smiled at her, sneered really, "You cook better than Eva."

"Thank you."

"And you clean better than her, too." He said. _Is he trying to compliment me?_ Hermione asked herself.

Anton stepped in closer to her and grabbed her wrist – they always are grabbing her wrist – and hissed, "And Boris said you fuck better than her, too."

Hermione jerked backwards in surprise. _We share everything_, Boris repeated in her mind. She recalled her boyfriend's lies, his stories about his mother's "insanity."

Hermione's face remained blank on the outside, though her internal girl was screaming. She sighed and whispered, "Thank you."

"Do you mind," he leaned in so closely that she could taste the breath of chicken. His face was level with her lips, but for some reason she felt so small, so helpless. She felt like nothing, like a broken toy, "demonstrating?" he finished, "You do have a beautiful…"

He trailed off and Hermione felt her consciousness leave her mind. She felt trapped inside of her body, inexorably imprisoned inside of her skull. He grinned his son's evil grin at her and led her body to the bed. He didn't even undress her, just lifting her knees over his shoulders. It was worse this time, deeper, burning more and more because he was slower than his son, taking more care to pull all the way out and slam back in again. She looked over his shoulders at Nyx in the shadows. Nyx's face was enraged and the shadows lengthened threateningly. This was rape, even if she did not protest this time, it was almost as if her thoughts were swirling lazily around her mind, a pounding headache was tap-dancing on her third eye, and her eyes were half-closed. She was trapped inside of her body, begging to be let out, pleading silently. It was almost as if she was drugged.

It was almost as if she had been drugged.

Sluggishly she registered the door opening and being bodily picked up and undressed and then placed in someone's lap. She was placed on top of him and slip down easily. Her face was pressed into his shoulder. It burned so terribly. He grabbed her waist and lifted and she felt a miniscule of relief from the pain and then he dropped her. She screamed inside of her mind. He would pick her up so that she was all the way off of him and then slam her back down. Every time it felt worse, and worse, and worse. _Perfection... _From behind she felt more hands touching her. Her skin felt too sensitive, and she seemed like she was feeling too intensely. ..._lost._

Suddenly she felt a ripping, burning, agonizing sensation behind her. Her limp young body, between two men, one breast squished against the chest of the man in front of her, the other clutched in the possessive hand of the other, her back shielded by the sweaty, stocky man behind her, and finally both were inside of her from different entrances. She _had _been drugged she concluded, but she had no idea how. After all, she was the one who cooked.

Maybe – but then she remembered that drugged sensation from somewhere else, from earlier that year when she had been drugged by, when she had been Imperioed by the DADA professor. But, she realized, she _was_ fighting it. Instead of happily bouncing on top of them like they probably wanted, instead of joyously seducing them, she was simply limp, a doll, nothing.

_Cogi qui potest nescit mori,_ She said to herself, _Cogi qui potest nescit mori._ She ordered herself, _Learn to die and they cannot have you! Learn to die, so that you may live! Survive!_

Finally, she breathed in and the drugged sensation faded. She lifted her head from Anton's shoulder, but they did not seem aware of what had happened, of how she had broken their curse. She felt nausea in the pit of her stomach as a plan formed in her mind, based off of a memoir she had read a year ago. The memoir was about a woman who had been kidnapped along with several other girls by a serial rapist. He kept them captive for a year, raping, beating and abusing them. He had kept them locked in a basement under his basement, and the sole survivor of the ordeal, the woman writing the memoir, had come up with a plan to save herself by "falling in love" with her captor, and befriending him. She had been forced to kill one of the other girls to prove her loyalty to him, but the plan had worked. She bargained to have him let her out and find another victim in exchange for a call to her little sister. He agreed, for he too had fallen in love with her. She went to charm a girl but instead sprinted away to a police officer and told them everything. The man killed himself before his trial. She changed her name and left town.

A dangerous plan formed inside of her mind, a plan fit for the Hufflepuff Dark Lady she should have, could have, been. She thrust her head back against Boris's shoulder and ground her hips into Anton's lap. She could have been the ultimate seductress she recalled from the Hat's words about Slytherin; however, she realized grimly, the only thing the Hat did not understand is that you do not need to be divided into certain houses to have a particular future or trait. She had learned _that_ from Harry.

When Viktor returned, she was waiting for him in his room. He took one look at her and blanched. She was sitting in an elaborate armchair. Her face was done up: red luscious lips, shadowy eye shadow, eyes framed in thick dark lashes, dressed in a tight red dress found in the dresser. It was long with large slits up to her thigh on either side. She sat in the chair sideways, legs propped on one of the arms, with the slit wide open to expose the entirety of her pale leg. Her hair was fastidiously curled and hung around her angular face. She stared at Viktor from the corner of her eyes.

She sighed and smiled sultrily, slowly extending her bare leg before standing up, "I'll be dressed like this when I kill you. Do you like it?" She spun slowly in front of him before pressing a long-nailed hand to his chest. She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him before whispering in his ear, "Do you?"

He nodded, "I do." He did not appear to have registered her earlier statement. Good.

She spoke with him into the night about asinine things before he begged her to come to bed with him. She smiled at him before consenting and then, meticulously, she slipped his wand out of his sleeve as he kissed her once more. She tossed it into her clothing and dissociated.

When she came to, she left the room and remade up herself for them. She made breakfast and carried a tray upstairs while everyone else was safely asleep. She looked at each closed doorway and wondered which one she should manipulate. _Not Boris_, she promised herself. She opened Anton's door and walked in with the food. She set it down on the table beside his sleeping form. She had memorized the layout of the house when she had cleaned it. She leaned down and pressed her lips to his, "Time to get up, Anton."

He groaned and turned over, "Leave me alone, Eva."

She crawled onto his bed, hiding her disgust as she straddled his waist.

She did not wish to think about this anymore. She remembered manipulating Anton into loving her just as he did Eva, and he hit her occasionally. The first time he hit her for making pancakes rather than bacon and eggs, she had cried and hid in her room, when secretly she was cheering in success. Eventually, Boris was jealous enough to try and "impress" her by showing her the secret gun collection. Viktor eventually realized his wand was missing and went on a travel to find a new one from Gregorovich and then Ollivanders. During that time, Hermione snuck into the "collection" torture room and stole a gun and a magazine hanging next to it. She could not for the life of her cast an Avada Kedavra; for she knew if she did, she would be no better than _them_. _(Perfection lost...)_

The night Viktor returned, she had kissed him lovingly at the door and he showed her his new wand. Hermione stared at it and could not wait to destroy it in front of him. She cooked a feast of all of their favorite foods and they all complimented her. Viktor said that her dress was as lovely as when she wore it the first time. She smiled at him and twirled a curl of her hair around her finger, her painted red lips smirking a secret smile that no one saw. In the corner of the room, Nyx sat Indian-style, with her sons in front of her. She nodded her thankfulness to them and then Boris asked her to come to bed, _at the dinner table_. Hermione smiled angelically at him and said, "Whatever you wish, Boris."

Viktor had finally looked up from his plate to gape at her and then glare at his brother," What have you done?" he asked, "You've destroyed her!"

Anton frowned and said, "She's mine tonight."

"She is my _girlfriend!_ How dare you?!" Viktor shouted. _Huh, he really did not know. What a foolish idiot. _

Hermione sighed and stood up, pulling the gun out of her dress. Anton shouted, "That is mine! You put it down you stupid mudblood bitch."

Hermione pointed it at Anton, looking at him casually with hooded eyes, "Stupid? Me? I have an IQ of 187, now. Did you know that? I am anything _but _stupid." And she fired the gun. Boris's body flew backwards and half of his head was gone. One eye hung down from his remaining eyesocket and a quarter of his skull was completely destroyed with his unused brains splattered across the wall behind him.

"Huh," Hermione said, holding the smoking gun limply in her hands, "I wasn't aware it was that powerful. I should have cut off his penis first at least."

Boris was shouting horrible things in Bulgarian and had pulled out his wand. Hermione reached down her low-cut evening gown and pulled out Viktor's forsaken wand. She flicked it casually and said, "Expelliarmus." The wand flew into her hand and she snapped it against the edge of the table.

Hermione's accidental magic threw the triangular table across the room and she pointed the gun at Boris's crotch. She missed and shot him in the thigh. She swore and grabbed a butcher knife off of the counter before stalking towards Boris.

"Herm-I-oh-ninny!" Viktor called, "Please, please stop this!"

Hermione turned her dead eyes on Viktor and pointed the gun at him, "They raped me, over fifty times. Did you know that? Your dear brother, held me down and ripped everything away from me. Did you know that? How could you not have known that? _Don't act like you didn't kno_w!" She shouted and fired. She missed completely and a family portrait on the wall shrieked as a fiery bullet ripped the head off of the painted, enchanted Anton once more, and the glass fell to the floor like crystallized snow.

"I hate you," Hermione said wearily, "I hate you all."

She turned to Boris and dropped the butcher knife seamlessly between his legs. He had already lost consciousness due to blood-loss since her off-kilter bullet had hit him in the Femoral Artery. She smiled briefly before turning to Viktor whose new wand was pointed at her.

She sighed and said, "Why did I ever fall in love with a coward like you who sits by and watched your mother get beaten, your girlfriend get raped, and you family slaughtered? Honestly, if I wanted a coward I would have tried for Draco Malfoy. And besides," with each word she stepped closer and closer to her soon to be ex-boyfriend, "I told you that I would kill you the next time I was dressed like this."

He was shuddering on the ground and she callously put the gun to his head, stepping on his wand and snapping it. She put the gun to his head and said, "Go to Hell. Perhaps she will have mercy on your soul, because I sure as Hell won't."

A gunshot is the loudest sound in the world, she knew.

Thanatos rested a cold hand on her wrist in the darkness, but she did not acknowledge him.

The gun was smoking in her shaking hand. She looked down at it and it clattered to the floor next to him. She turned, swaying slightly, and made her way back upstairs. She found her wand hidden away in the bathroom and hid it in the dress's corset. She grabbed her passport and the wallets that she had filched from the men's bedrooms and walked downstairs.

She stared at the destroyed room. She had been in the terrible house for a month and three days she recalled. It was almost instinct to her when she went over and righted the odd triangular table. She knelt and grabbed the blood-splattered table cloth in front of Anton's body and reset the table. She picked up the tossed aside plates and set them fastidiously on the table. She carefully replaced the food on the platters and placed the utensils meticulously at each plate's side. She found the napkins and folded them into perfect isosceles triangles. She picked up the chairs and replaced them at their designated spots around the table.

She picked up Anton's wand from the floor and cast a _Scourgify_ on the rug. She then _Accioed _three white candles and lit them with three _Incendios. _She set them in the center of the table and sat down in the chair Eva had sat in so long ago. She looked at the gun on the floor and cast a _Scourgify_, and then she cast the spell on her hands. It scratched at her skin as if someone was rubbing a metal brush with bleach into her hands. She stared at her red hands and snapped the wand, tossing it to the side.

She then picked up a fork and took a bite out of the mashed potatoes. About an hour later, a knock resounded on the door.

A Bulgarian man said in his native tongue, "I am an officer of the Ministry of Justice. We have received a call about disturbance by gunshots. Is anybody home?"

Another voice said, muffled, "This house is not registered. Perhaps it is abandoned."

Hermione stood and walked to the door, her hands shaking as she unlocked the many locks on the door. She called, "Hello," in English, tired of the harsher language.

The officer switched languages and said, "Who are you?"

"I am," she paused, "Eva. I was kidnapped a month ago and brought here. Can you take me home?"

The officer looked behind her and saw Anton's body against the wall.

"Did you do that?" he asked her gruffly.

She looked behind her and a tear trailed down her face. She turned back and said, "No."

"Do you know who did?"

"Viktor," she enunciated, "Viktor did it."

"Who is Viktor?" the officer asked her gently.

"Viktor is the man who kidnapped me," she said dully.

"Come with us," he told her and the two led her to the car. She sat down and the other officer sat next to her. She looked straight ahead the entire ride to the station.

They gave her a phone and instead of dialing her mother, she typed: 2.

"Bulgarian Ministry of Magick?" a Bulgarian witch asked.

"Can you connect me to Eva Krum?" Hermione asked.

Long story short, Eva Krum came to pick up her "daughter" an hour later.

Hermione greeted her, "_Cogi qui potest nescit mori._"

Eva nodded back and the two Apparated to the airport.

"Are they dead?" Eva asked.

Hermione nodded, "All of them."

And for once, Eva smiled.

Hermione did not.

Tis the cost of perfection lost.

…

When Hermione arrived home, her parents had asked her how her trip was and she had burst into hysterical laughter. She fell silent and wandered off to her room. She locked herself in the bathroom, picked up one of her unused razors and bit the edges of the plastic so that three blades fell to the floor. She picked one up and held out a piece of her curled, frizzy mess and dragged the blade across until a two foot long frizzy ringlet fell to the floor. She picked up the neck ringlet and repeated the process until she had nothing but messy "Rocker" fringe all over her head. _Perfection..._

When her mother came to check on her, Hermione hid the blades down her shirt. Her mother took one look at her and gasped in horror. Hermione looked in the mirror at the messy flyaway pieces, all different lengths. Hermione picked up a brush and threw it at the mirror. The mirror shattered and pieces of the glass fell on the floor. _Seven years bad luck_, she commented to herself.

Helen walked forward slowly with her arms extended as if Hermione was a rabid animal. She said calmly, "Oh Hermione, your pretty hair. Oh, I'm sure I can fix it a little bit. You don't want a mess like that do you?"

Hermione just stared at her at if she was crazy. Helen spun with a flourish and picked up a baby-pair of scissors – the kind of scissors made for cutting hair, _huh,_ Hermione was not aware that her eidetic memory could fail her, snippers? Clippers? Clippers – and sat her down in a chair. Helen smiled that kind, childish smile that she always had on when Bill was being a condescending bastard, and she said, "It's been awhile since we last had any bonding time, Hermione. I'm sure everyone will like your new haircut!"

Hermione stared at the single triangle of mirror left at the bottom of the frame. Helen snipped and snipped until her hair was about the same length and she had short bangs that curled to the side. Her hair was shorter than Harry's, and it curled in the back just like his did. She wanted to smile, but she couldn't.

There was really no reason to smile anymore. There really wasn't a reason in the first place.

When Hermione went downstairs, her father's eyes bulged. Helen stood next to her with an arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder, smiling at her husband, "Isn't Hermione _beautiful_?"

He blinked and turned back to his paper.

_Way to be honest, Daddy._

…

She had fallen pregnant due to their actions and she looked up abortifacients without a thought. She was a firm pro-choicer, and besides, she could not handle being pregnant during a war – or at all. She would be a terrible mother. She hated children. It was not as if she wanted this child. She had been _raped_. How could she have a child whose father ruined her? Or worse, how could she raise Viktor's child after killing him? It wasn't her fault! How could she have a child that would throw her emotions and hormones out of whack during a war where her cold intelligence was vital? How could she have a child too large for her small, teenaged body? How could anyone deem to force her to have a child that she would _kill_ if it was born?

Besides, a child can still kill the mother during childbirth no matter how good technology is. She was needed, this fetus was not. She did not care how it sounded, and it wasn't as if she wanted every mother to abort the fetus forced upon them, but she simply could not conceive keeping this unwanted bundle of nothingness. She would never have made a good mother, and her body would be destroyed by the child anyway. It was self-defense, she told herself. It was revenge, she assured herself. It was saving that child from a life of being hated by its mother or being thrusted from foster family to foster family for the rest of its life. In fact, she realized, she would be the best mother because she knew that if she had that baby she would be forcing it to live in a hateful, cruel world where it would never ever be wanted, or loved, where it would be a half-blood, a freak, a fake, a nothing. It would never amount to anything anyway, it would never be allowed to. _Besides_, she told herself, _it isn't as if I will live past this war anyway. Why orphan a baby like that?_

She found a pill – levonorgestrel - and then it was gone, barely a spot of blood, barely a hundred cells, nothing. She felt nothing.

She still feels nothing.

And she does not regret it.

..._lost._

…

In fifth year, when Hermione became trapped under that toad's reign, she began to feel the stirrings of her inner Hufflepuff once more. She wanted to rebel, she wanted control, she wanted to _fight_, and so she manipulated her Neoptolemus into turning them into an army. She taught them battle potions, stealth and the value of a brain – they all had them, they all could use them. He taught them how to fight, how to win and how to lose. Ron, her Orestes, taught them teamwork, ambition, and strategies. Neville taught them endurance. Luna taught them friendship and camaraderie. They fought and retook their school, and finally she led Umbridge to the centaurs domain where they would rape her. It made Hermione sick inside because no woman or man deserved that, but… Hermione would do _anything_ for her two dearest friends. During that year, she teetered on the edge of insanity.

She could barely recall sixth year, except that she grew extremely jealous of Lavender Brown spurring her slutty claws through Ron, and Hermione finally stuck her claim on him. Harry was also falling apart, clawing onto the edge of the cliff, frantic for a stronghold to hang on to, and slipping farther and farther into the darkness. He was a good liar, she could admit. She knew he would have gone to Slytherin if he had let the Hat do its job, but then again, conflicted people like the two of them might have had to choose anyway. Harry: an idealistic fool that hated authority in all forms, a ruthless bastard willing to do _anything_ to meet his ends. He had no idea how dangerous he actually was. And she, she knew too well who she was. At the end of the year, Dumbledore died. Her only regret was that she had not killed him.

She memory-charmed her worthless parents and sent them to Australia, before running off to kill people. They found and destroyed all of the horcruxes over the course of a two-year long war. She had killed so many men, imperioed so many men, crucioed so many men, shot so many men… It was truly amazing how outdated the Wizarding World still was.

She had only fought men and men and men, and the only women she saw take the battlefield were Bellatrix LeStrange (a Black), Nymphodora Tonks (a Black), and finally Molly Prewett Weasley (a cousin to the Blacks). She had seen Narcissa on the battlefield, but she had never fought. Luna had fought, but Luna is queer, loony, like _everyone_ said. Luna, a fighter, is crazy. Bellatrix, a fighter, is crazy. Tonks, a fighter, is crazy. Molly, a fighter, is a crazed mother (because if one is doing it for their kids, it doesn't really count). In conclusion, the Blacks are _crazy_. Why? Because they expect their women to fight? The entire Wizarding World expected women to marry and produce pureblooded children; it did not expect Aurors or politicians; even Umbitch did not seem to want to be minister, as if she felt that she would never achieve that position.

After the war, Hermione had felt trapped in the tight confines of their society. Ron was hanging onto humanity by the skin of his teeth at that point. Harry had finally jumped off, forsaking all chance of recovery. And she? She was never really on a stable part of the Sane cliff in the beginning anyway.

She found her parents' graves in Australia. They had been stung by jellyfish. She had indirectly killed them. Oh well.

On one winter day, they were sitting in the rebuilt Gryffindor's common room when Harry said idely, "Is killing yourself wrong?"

When they did not answer him, Harry rephrased, "Is killing yourself _right_?"

Ron had shrugged and said, "Only if you are stopping yourself from killing other people, or raping them, or something."

"Then I should really kill myself, shouldn't I?"

Hermione sighed and said, "Well by that logic, I should be dead."

Ron had looked at them in surprise, "What? Killing yourself is never the answer!"

"Why not?" Hermione and Harry asked in chorus.

Hermione continued, "Why can't it be an answer? This is my life, my body. And besides, if I stay here, trapped here, then I_ will _kill you."

Harry nodded and said solemnly, "I have nothing that keeps me here."

Ron had looked at him in a certain way, betrayed. Hermione knew about the love Harry held for them both, but he had a certain attachment to Ron. She did not know if it was romantic or anything, or if Harry had the capabilities to even feel love at all, but Harry was undoubtedly attached to Ron. However, Ron and she had been in a relationship for the past three years. They never did anything physical, and she kept her hair cropped short. In fact, it could barely be called a relationship at all. It was barely a friendship where it was socially acceptable for her to sleep in his bed occasionally, or lay claim to him from other suitors.

"Please," Ron had said, begging "Don't leave me here alone."

Hermione knew Ron's story, and she had said, "If we plan it right, we could all be together…at the end."

Soon, their entire group had known the plan, and she finally asked for a Russian Roulette element to be added to it. She knew Ron hated the idea, but she did not know if she would actually be able to go through with it, at the end.

How foolish she was. Does she still not understand how stubborn she is?

She stared at Nyx, Hypnos and Thanatos in the corner of the room and pulled the trigger, wondering if she would be finally able to talk to them, if they would leave her alone, if –

_Click_. Her inner self sighed, _Next Round. _

She handed the gun to Ginny and thought of the note she had written to the Bulgarian Police, telling them about who actually did it. At least it would be solved. She also remembered the simple note she had had Errol take to Eva Krum. She told her story to her in vivid detail, from the good to the bad, from how her father would only accept perfection, how she slipped into depression, how her insecurities overrode her. She had been her pen-pal for the past half a decade and she finally sent her last note to last of her dear friends.

_Eva,_

_Cogi qui potest nescit mori. I can no longer be forced to do anything. _

_I thank you. Do not go gently into that good night. I promise you I fought all the way._

_This is the cost of perfection. If you ever have another child, be sure to ensure that they are never, ever perfect. _

_H. _

She sighed and spun the barrel handing it to Ginny. Ginny smiled at her gratefully and Hermione turned her gaze upon her Orestes. If they had lived, she thought, they might have been happy, or, she amended,_ he_ would have been happy.

A gunshot is the loudest thing in the world, she knew. The familiar blood splatter across her surprised face. She turned her head to look at Ginny's slumped body.

How funny. It is so easy to transition, Ginny to just her body, Viktor to Vikor's body, Tom to Voldemort to Voldemort's ashes…

So easy…

Too easy…

Huh, she was crying. Hermione wiped her face as Harry put in another bullet and spun it before giving it to Fred whom was joking, even at a time like this. Ron stared at the floor, shocked. _Please,_ she silently begged, _please escape, Ronald. Live for me. Please._

But he could not hear her.

_Click_ for Fred, _roll_. _Click _for Neville, _roll_. _Click_ for Draco, then Harry, then Percy, with a rolling of the revolver chambers each time in between. Finally George put the gun to his temple, smiled at Fred and pulled the trigger.

Fred's anguished cry was burned into her memory.

His eyes were open wide at the half-smiling face of his dead brother, parallel to him across the table. His mouth was agape and a simple tear fell down his face. He had screamed; the mirror shattered in front of him, feeling his life burned right before his eyes as that bullet barreled through his twin's brain, destroying everything in its path. Love lost, brother lost, life lost…

Hermione smiled bitterly at her hands. _Maybe, by the end, Freddy, you will understand my pain_.

She sighed and looked up at Harry once again gingerly cleaned the smoking gun – less powerful than the one that killed the Krums – they wanted what was left of their loved ones to have a body to look at at the funeral.

He handed the reloaded gun to Luna and the third round began.

And she thanked Nyx for having no perfection.


	4. The Girl Who Had It All

**Welcome back, fearless readers. **

**Russian Roulette **by Treena-Ivy Thyme Carter

**Summary: A group of twelve is seated around a round table in the dark in the dead of night. They seek to play a game. In this game, to win one must lose, to lose one must win. To play, one only has to pull the trigger. What brought these despairing souls here?**

**I am genuinely intrigued by the character of Ginevra Weasley. Personally, in the books and movies, I did not like her character – well, I liked her better in the movies – and I could not understand, for the life of me, what canon, book-Harry saw in her. All I saw was a pathetic little fan girl, and an unrealistic, unfeeling romance that JKR needlessly injected into the novel to, perhaps, enforce the fan-theory that the entire series was a fantasy in Abused!Harry's mind as he was dying in the cupboard under the stairs. That may also be because I do not believe in romantic love, or that I can find much more in friendship than dating since I am an asexual person, but… I decided to look into Ginevra's character, and try to see if I could understand her. And understand I did. **

**There seem to be two stances writers take on fanfiction with Ginny: a money grabbing whore – which I saw, a little bit – or a loving, albeit stupid, girlfriend – which I also could see and understand. I even saw the occasional Ginevra that I would like as a lover for a heterosexual or bisexual or trisexual Harry; but, however, this was a Ginny created by the writer for the writer's own purposes, not a canon Ginevra that I want to understand. The stance I will take, I will let you, as my reader, discover.**

**Also, this was inspired by a reviewer that was a little angry at me killing Ginny, which made me want to examine Ginny's reasons even more. Characters like Ginny – girls who have **_**everything**_** in my opinion – I really dislike them, especially in fiction, because how dare _they_ feel sadness? They never lost anything, they never fought for anything, they never did anything horrendous. They. Have. Everything. It is honestly despicable. How dare they, they who have never experienced pain, true pain, dare do what I never could? How dare _they_ kill yourself, when they have everything I have ever wanted? What do they have to kill themselves for? They have everything. Everything. (But this is my solipsism kicking in once more. I have a disturbing, annoying habit of thinking of myself as normal, as average, of expecting people to think and act like me. A lot of people are like that though.)**

**Except, Ginny has done something horrible, hasn't she? **

**Except, Ginny could love Harry, rather than fangirlism over him, because of what she did, of what they experienced, couldn't she? **

**Except, maybe Ginny has a reason for this after all.**

**This is a bit short yes, but...**

Chapter 3: Ginevra

The three quotes I dedicate to Ginevra is:

"_A locked door, a rusty razor, a towel stained with red. A folded note, a broken mirror, and young girl lays there dead. Their emotions tangle, the room begins to swirl. She was Mommy's perfect angel and Daddy's little girl." – Anonymous (Hey, it rhymed! Sorry, that was inappropriate...)  
_

"_Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy."_ ― Susanna Kaysen

_"The only reason I don't end it all is because I keep waiting for it to get better, to make friends, and be prettier." - Anonymous_

A dead girl's body cools in a chair painted in violent reds and blues, torturous violets and sickly yellows, dead greens and putrid oranges. It was a rendition of a psychopath's mind: shady, fluctuating, and gory. It portrayed dead butterflies – wings ripped off, infected rainbows that ended in cauldrons full of blood and skulls, and a family of redheads burning at the stake. There was a beautiful, shadowy portrait of a boy with dark hair and a round face, with eyes of two different colors: an iridescent dark blue on the right and a shiny, deadly green on the left. There was a lion with a snake wrapped around its neck, and a badger was attacking the snake while a rapid eagle flew around the scene. There was a beautiful naked woman with three eyes, and wax dripped blood upon her breasts.

She sat slightly sideways, her face tilted to the side. On her right temple was a deep black hole ringed in a dark plum circle. Her almond-shaped, deep blue eyes still shined in the darkness. Her long, auburn bangs clipped back from her face, the hair on the back of her neck hanging loose. Her thin, pale neck was exposed and the cold shadows embraced her easily. She was dressed in a black blazer, black straight-leg trousers, and a scarlet blouse. Her lips glimmered with a tinted lip gloss, her face was lightly dusted with blush, her eyes lined darkly, her lids shaded just barely, and all of her imperfections permanently hidden for the rest of eternity.

And barely, just barely, a candle illuminated a single salty drop sliding down her face on the left side.

_I bet you wonder why I did it. I mean, I had everything going for me, right?_

_I had a loving family, I was the favorite child, I never had to work for what I wanted, or fight for attention like my siblings_.

Even now, her voice echoed in the quiet howler she had sent her parents. She did not shout, or curse; it was like a tape recording. She was quiet, talking, resigned. She did not address it like a letter, more like a memoir. She pointed no fingers, or acknowledge the flabbergasted adults whose future was to listen to it. They had yet to know what was occurring at the moment to their children; unknowledgeable, blissful in their ignorance. It was like a diary entry, a narration, a simple read though of someone's last will and testament.

_I was never bullied, per se, or without friends, though they were few and far between. I was never unloved or without a lover._

Her mother would gasp as she heard that. She had so innocently believed that her only daughter was a virgin. She had raised her to be a virginal maiden until the night of her marriage to a respectable, reputable, perhaps kind, certainly well-off pureblooded wizard. Even, if the Weasleys were blood traitors, why were they all purebloods?

_I never suppressed my sexuality. I was lucky enough to be born straight and healthy. I was lucky enough to be born as a pretty – not drop-dead gorgeous, not sexy – but I was pretty, I guess. I wasn't plain or ugly at least; I was averagely pretty. I-I was lucky enough to be born into a _loving_ home, as a powerful witch – the seventh child of the seventh child, the seventh generation of a pureblood family. I never lost anyone in the war, so I guess that makes me lucky, too. _

_I was lucky enough to be kind, intelligent, beautiful, popular… _She sniffled before the howler continued. _I was lucky, I had everything. I had _everything_, right? Everything. _Her voice dropped to a whisper, _But I didn't, did I?_

She sounded as if she was standing up – her mother would be crying as she listened. She sounded as if she was throwing something across the room. A vase, her mother would recall. Ginny had – oh _had_, her mother would cry out – thrown a "temper tantrum" one day during the Easter Break, and she was writing to her friends when she suddenly stood up and threw a vase against her bedroom wall. It shattered in the howler's recording. She gasped and sprinted to her bathroom. She had cast a silencer on the door, her mother would recall.

Her voice was strangled and angry, screaming, _I was born into a poverty-stricken, destitute family in a misogynistic society full of cruel men and weak women that all wear façades and lie to meet their own ends! Everything I owned was someone else's! I never had anything that was _mine! _I, _She pulled in a gasping breath, quieting her voice, _I had a loving home that was too large to handle itself and it was full of mad people! Bill, Bill pulled into himself, throwing himself into studying. He _hated _me, us, everyone. He never cared. Charlie loved me, but he never understood. He tried to let me be myself, but he _left me! _He left me when I needed him, needed anyone, and he just went and left! _Her voice was screaming again. _Percy was a sexist, introverted smart aleck, but he was the only one that could ever understand what I was. I was unwanted, unneeded, always trying to prove myself – except every way I tried, no one liked because it was above our position. _

Her voice heightened, mocking their mother's voice, "_The first born son goes to the Ministry. The second born son goes to the Aurors. The first daughter goes to a noble family for a hefty dowry. The second daughter goes to a lesser family for a lower dowry." There was never a need for anyone else, right? Except we didn't fit did we? Did we? I never wanted to be a rich man's wife. And he, he didn't want to be some lowlife _third son_. He went to the Ministry, and he left us to do it, but he was _right!

She screamed the last word. She breathed heavily once more for a little while, choking on sudden sobs, whispering over her tears, _He. Was. Right. Why does family matter when they just hold you down? Where was I?_ she whispered, _Fred and George were always in their own worlds, hating everyone and anything. They, they weren't bullying to me, not like Percy and Ron, but I was still just a girl to them. I was nothing, I could be nothing, I would always be nothing to them. Ron, Ron, Ron. We were the closest in age, but not close in real life. I cannot blame him for anything that happened and neither should you because he was raped, and I was not. _

_Don't you get it, Mummy? You failed. You failed with the both of us. _Her voice was harsh, colder, calmer. She enunciated every word. _He was molested and raped by Uncle Billius, and you didn't notice and you didn't care until it was expected of you. I guess I'm lucky, right? _I _wasn't raped after all. I _wasn't_. I wasn't… Why else was I lucky? _The recording paused, and her parents would look at each other in their grief, confused, afraid, ignorant.

_I,_ the two would startle one another at the jump when their daughter's voice returned, _I wasn't starving, or bullied, or raped, or unloved, or tortured, or kidnapped, or killed – _she laughed – _or gay, or trans, or terminally ill or a murderer – _she giggled more _– or thinking about learning _Avada Kedavra _and coming to school with a wand at the ready. _

They would hear her bump her head a few times on the closet door in her room, echoing each word. _I. Had. Everything. Everything, right? _

_But I didn't, did I? I had nothing. _Her voice twisted in disgust on the last word, saying it as if it was worse than everything in the world.

_I bet you think that I'm selfish for doing this, or stupid, or foolish. That's what they say after all. _Her voice became mockingly condescending. _Suicide is never the answer; it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem; you got your whole life ahead of you, why throw it away? Oh that? That's not a problem, that's not a reason to kill yourself! What are you, stupid? This is just a phase, you'll get through it. That's life. Life isn't fair. You'll be fine tomorrow. Take a chill pill, Ginny. Nothing's wrong, Ginny. Be grateful, Ginny. You're _lucky_, Ginny. You have everything, Ginny, stop being a self-centered brat._

_What could possibly be so terrible, so horrible, that I must end this travesty, this joke, this parody of a life? My story isn't tragic – not like the others – I wasn't abused. I wasn't tortured. I wasn't raped. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't a disappointment. I wasn't bullied. I wasn't anything! _She screeched the last word, pausing to breathe. She chuckled and her light voice returned easily, _That's it, isn't it? I wasn't anything at all. It wasn't that I was unimportant, or not famous. It's that I was a woman born into a closed, close-minded, sexist society where I was meant to have children after marrying well. I wasn't meant to become a businesswoman or a sportsplayer or have a career outside of children. My opinions did not matter. My wants did not matter. _I _did not matter._

_I was just a set of legs, a pair of toned thighs, a pair of 36 double d breasts, a cunt, a mouth, an ass, and finally, I was a baby-making machine. I was _nothing_ but a body for a man – because I, especially as a female, am not allowed to desire anyone else but a man, even if I _was_ a lesbian by any chance. I was simply _nothing_. Nothing. _They would hear her pause again, bump her head against the door again, and they would - _But that's not just it is it? _She asked herself, taking on the tone of an outsider, talking to herself as if she was another person was in the room, watching herself. _That can't be just it, right?_

_Well, that's not just it, as a matter of fact. Maybe, I would have been fine with being a girl without any rights in a marriage to some well off guy as long as I was able to have kids and throw off of my heart and soul into them. But, that's the thing, because you see, Mummy, I can't have kids._

Her mother would gasp in shock.

_I had so much sex, I was fucked so many times, I lost my virginity before I was thirteen. I was one of the most promiscuous, slutty girls at Hogwarts, and I knew all of the spells to prevent every sexually transmitted disease out there. I always had a boyfriend and three or four lovers on the side to make sure I always had a bed to crawl into, a pair of arms to hold me. I always had someone to love me, to cherish me. I did not discriminate on age, or ethnicity, or school house, or whether or not it would be socially acceptable to be with them. But why didn't I get pregnant? Shouldn't I have some terrible tale about aborting my baby or a lover killing it or something like that? Shouldn't I have something like that?_

_Of course not, _she chuckled. _I cut out my uterus when I was only eleven years old. And really, I wouldn't have minded being infertile if it was _my_ choice to cut it out. You see, this leads to the real reason, the climax, my turning point from living, from marrying straight out of Hogwarts like my destitute, hateful parents, from giving up my rights and freedoms for snot-nosed brats to raise and cherish and live vicariously. My turning point, my foil, my Yin, was an evil, _Her voice shook and paused at the end of each syllable, _horrendous, terrible, despicable, vicious, virulent, invidious, disgusting, perverted, murderous rapist that hated everything and everyone. _

_His name is one you surely know._

_His name is Tom Riddle. You know him as Voldemort_. They would flinch at that, at her ease at saying the name.

_He possessed me when I was only ten years old, just days before my eleventh birthday. We had went out shopping for my Hogwarts supplies – secondhand of course – with Harry Potter and my brothers. And then I met Lockhart, and Lucius Malfoy came in the door and started something with Daddy, and then Lucius shoved a diary in my secondhand Transfiguration notebook. I found it when we got home, and so I wrote in it, and then my words disappeared and Tom replied. I can remember just like it was yesterday:_

"_Hello, my name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"_

"_Hello," I had so naively replied, "My name is Ginevra Weasley. I found your diary in my Transfiguration textbook. Would you like it back?"_

"_That's alright, Ginevra. Let's just talk awhile. I am in a diary after all, I'd never reveal your secrets. I promise."_

_And so, I told him. I told him. I told him _everything_. About being the youngest in a family of masks, about being the seventh child, about how I wanted friends, how I wanted Harry to like me and marry me, how I wanted to be independent, how I hated my family. I bared my soul to him – and baring it was what he wanted. Baring it to him allowed him the chance to latch onto to my soul and possess my heart_, her voice dropped down to a dramatic whisper_, He took over my mind in increasing intervals, inviting me to visit him in the diary. He told me everything about himself, in return for all of my secrets. He told me about the nuns that beat him, about a room he was locked in, about the first time he killed._

_Sometimes, when he possessed me, he'd allow my consciousness alongside his, so I could feel his emotions – however few he had – and our minds would be one, together. We killed together. We laughed together. He kissed me, ever so gently, caressing my very being inside the diary, latching onto my heart and combining us. He stole my guilt and love away, and I took his pain. We became one in _every _way, and that made me a sociopath. He was a psychopath – he couldn't form attachments to people like I could. Or perhaps it's the other way around, maybe it was _he_ who was the sociopath that tried too desperately to find someone else to love like he loved, and in turn turned a girl with a normal mind function into a psychopath by pouring the parts of him that held his disorder into me, so that the neurons of our brains aligned. But, he went too far. To align my brain to his, my mind broke and thus I had an antisocial disorder – somewhat. _

_He possessed me, he loved me. I possessed him, I loved him. He told me everything, and I told him. He took a knife and I drew it across my abdomen. At the point where he and I drew the knife and spilled my blood, I wrested control from him, drew the knife high and stabbed it deep. He healed me. Or perhaps, it was the opposite. He stabbed me and I healed myself…_ her voice faded away. _We were killers, the two of us. Bonnie and Clyde. Jekyll and Hyde. We were criminals, murderers. Sure, he "possessed" me, he "forced" me to do things like kill people, torture them, torture and murder animals, petrify my friends, terrify my brothers, terrible things. But, I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was a clinical sociopath. I am a clinical sociopath. There is no way to cure it. _

She paused again for several moments, and her parents would look at each other fearfully, confusedly. She began again.

_It was then where my life went wrong. That day when a diary replied and invited me to bare my soul. That nudity led to a rape of my mind, of my heart, and he stole everything from me, including a will to live a lie for the rest of my life like any other Weasley or Prewett. _She laughed bitterly. _Except, none of us _are_ like you, are we? Bill ran off to play with goblins, money he could never touch and French Veela half-breeds that he would fuck. Charlie ran off to wrestle dragons and risk death everyday – huh, maybe we all do have death wishes, truthfully. Percy ran off to play with Malfoys and laws and hierarchy that he dreams of being on top of – that he will one day be on top of. Fred and George ran into each other, into their dirty, cruel humour, into their forbidden love for one another. Ron ran towards Harry Potter, the biggest beacon for trouble since Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald. And me? I ran towards Tom Riddle, and then I ran into my own hatred._

_Harry gets that about me. Remember how you used to tell me stories about Harry Potter? How he was a hero and how I was going to marry him? Yeah, right._ She chuckled bitterly a little bit.

_Harry and I became friends, you know. He was the one who put this thought in my head, this tantalizing gift of suicide._ Her parents would gasp at this calm admittance. _We__ were sitting on a bench one day about a year and a half before the war ended, when it was just barely picking up. He was the brooding hero, pining over someone whose secret I will not tell. I do not know at this point if he is still alive, if he changed his mind about his own suicide, but if he_ is_ alive, I wouldn't want to blow a secret that would make you hate him. Harry was brooding over Sirius' death on the bench and I was sitting next to him. He said, "I really wonder about Tom Riddle."_

_"Really?" I said monotonously, "What about him?"  
_

_"Did he choose to be evil, or was it a progression of choices that he thought were right that eventually led to all of this pain and suffering? Did he suddenly wake up and say 'Hello world, I fucking hate you, I'm gonna turn you into a pile of ash for hurting me so badly' or did he say 'the world is broken and I'm gonna fix it'?"  
_

_I closed my eyes before looking at him with his head in his hands and his glasses next to him. I said, "It was a progression mostly."_

_"How do you know?" He asked spitefully but then his face fell and he backpedaled, "I-I'm really sorry, that was out of line."_

_You would be proud of me, Mummy. I reached out a hand and intertwined his fingers with mine and said, "It's alright. Did you know he was born a psychopath?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Do you know what that means?"_

_"It means he was born evil."_

_I looked at him sharply and politely corrected him, "No, it means that a part of his brain did not function and it was the part that controls fear and adrenaline. His fear receptors - receptors that act up even in baby situations like in talking to people and in conforming to society's demands and to the mob-mentality and sociology - were extremely numb, making him one of the ultimate adrenaline junkies. He was always trying to get that high by controlling others, by manipulating others, by becoming powerful. Psychopathy also numbs guilt - which is pretty much all based on fear and society's expectations as well - and pretty much destroys all chances he ever had at relating to other people. It also suppresses compassion and kindness since both are based on fearing society's reactions. It also didn't help that he was abused. A good percentage of the population is actually afflicted with an antisocial disorder."_

_"Really?" he asked, surprised, "Why isn't everyone trying to kill each other, then - or take control, like you said?"_

_"Because a lot of the violence connected to psychopathy is also connected to abuse in childhood. Tom Riddle was severely abused and bullied at his orphanage, but if he had been raised normally by his birth mother then he would still have been a psychopath, but he would have become the ultimate politician, not a mass-murdering Hitler-wannabe."_

_"Ah," Harry said._

_We sat there together in silence for awhile, and then I offered, "What do you think it is like to die?"_

_He shrugged, staring at the blue sky reflecting off of the waters, "I don't know. I guess its like killing or losing your virginity: daunting, fun, terrifying and finally," he paused dramatically, looking at me, "...satisfying."_

_"When have you ever killed?" I asked curiously._

_"I was eleven. Quirrell. My hands burned his face off while he was strangling me. Accidental magic. And then I killed the basilisk and stabbed diary Tom Riddle. And then a few acromantulas and a Death Eater here and there. All accidents, mind you." The way he smiled on that word, accidents, made it very clear that none of those were actually accidents._

_You see, Mummy, Harry was like me a little bit. We had several talks about that, debating theories and such, debating on politics, on rights, on abortions, on sex, on gender roles. I knew everything about him, but it wasn't like Tom. Even though Harry was startling similar to him, Harry was _not _him. But I liked Harry. He reminded me of myself. He reminded me of Tom.  
_

_The two of us were killers that had no right to feel guilty over what we did. We were heroes, but we were villains, as well. _

_And remember, I was one of the _lucky ones_. I had _everything_. Now, isn't that just sad?_

_I mean, besides the sociopathy, I was pretty nice, wasn't I? Didn't I play the game well, Tom?! _She screamed. She calmed instantly and continued. _I mean, I was compassionate… enough, at least? Yeah? I was compassionate, I was kind enough. Wasn't I?_ Her voice was taking on a slightly panicked tinge. _I mean, I didn't bully anyone, I didn't hurt anyone, right? I mean, I never felt guilty, so I couldn't have done anything wrong? But I could have, couldn't I? I mean, I'm a sociopath. I don't feel guilt. Isn't that the whole point of sociopathy? I don't feel guilt and my fear receptors are number than average. I'm an adrenaline junkie that gets off on hurting people, while still maintaining a slight ability to relate to others. _

_I could have hurt someone so deeply that they died. _She fell silent once more for a few minutes as her mother – in the message – was swearing curse words and insults while banging on the door. Ginny sighed and continued her monologue. _Perhaps I slept with so many people because of my sociopathy. It would make sense, wouldn't it? I mean, my boyfriends all had the potential to be dangerous, and a few hit me occasionally. Perhaps I liked these love triangles and octagons around me. It was _fun _to pit them against one another over the heat between my legs. It was _fun_. Maybe, I like hurting people, ripping their hearts out, stealing boyfriends from little girls that never did anything to deserve this inequality in this little town of bigots. _

_I tire of this topic. Let's move on to my self-esteem issues. Oh, and I know haven't been addressing you and your mistakes this entire time, but this is _my _last speech, my last talk with you, so I think we should be honest,_ A pause,_ we should finally talk off the masks, and get to know each other, except, _Her voice turned mocking momentarily, _you'll be getting to know me, and I'll be forgetting about you. _

She sighed and said, _Let's take a break. The Mummy of your past is going to tear strips into me. We shall return when I am alone again._

There was barely a break in the Howler as hours, days, weeks passed in their daughter's time as she was writing her final words. It was funny – odd, queer, not meaning _funny_ at all – how time could so quickly be fooled into acting like it wasn't there, hiding in the shadows.

_Hello again. I'm back. You've barely missed me. Actually, perhaps you'll miss me, now. Wouldn't that be nice, to have someone that misses you, that cares enough _to _miss you. Where were we in this song and dance? Oh yes, my self-esteem issues. Unlike a psychopath, like Tom, I did not have a giant ego. I was a sociopath. I had issues. _

_I wasn't the smartest – not like Hermione. I mean, I wasn't an outright retard or airhead like, say, Lavender Brown or Dennis Creevey – though he was a sweetheart, before he died that is. I wasn't dropdead gorgeous like _Cho Chang _or Celestina Warbeck. I mean, I wasn't hideous like Millicent Bulstrode. I wasn't ugly like Pansy Parkinson. I wasn't plain like Susan Bones – though she does have a reasonably sexy body – I mean have you seen her breasts? They're huge! At least an H or something… Wait, where were we? Oh yes. I mean, I was reasonably pretty, right? I had long red hair, big brown eyes, average double d breasts. I wasn't obese, but I wasn't exactly Cho Chang- skinny. God, I wish I was a stick figure. Stick figure girls don't realize how lucky they are to have no curves. They can add padding or stuff their dresses or wear a certain style. Girls like me with breasts and hips also have a _stomach_. It's not fair. _

_But life isn't fair._

_Not that I'd know, of course. I had everything. _

_Damn, I must sound downright repetitive to you. Boring. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that my pain bores you. I guess you won't have to listen much longer. _

_Tom Riddle ruined me. He destroyed me and built me back as his perfect mistress, his soulmate, his _friend_. He ripped my deadbeat, endless, imprisoning future away from me when he ripped my uterus from me. He ripped my mind away from me, making me hateful and uncaring. He made me have sex with so many men, destroy so many relationships, ruin the hearts of tens, hundreds, thousands of men! He made me lose my virginity to a boy that looked sort of life him – a sixth year Ravenclaw. He made me the slut of Hogwarts. He ruined me. I was supposed to be a little brainless nothing, a whore for an upstanding man and we would play husband and wife and have pureblood brats for me to rear and destroy like Mummy did to me! I was just supposed to be a wife to a rich man, an heir producer. I was Mummy's little girl, Daddy's little angel. I was a virginal maiden that never thought of breaking tradition or the rules, except for quiet dreams of being a famous Quidditch player. I would have been that and less if I had never met the demon called Tom._

_But moreover, I wouldn't have trusted Tom if it wasn't for you, Mummy. _Her voice was slowly rising in an angry crescendo. _You trained me to respect men, to seduce them. You told me to seduce Harry Potter, that he would marry me and I'd be well off. I was supposed to have three children with him, two boys and a girl; one for the Ministry, one for the Aurors, and a girl to sell to the highest bidder to have pureblood children. I was supposed to be the loving, brainless housewife that looked away when my husband cheated on me. I was supposed to be known for being a good mother like you, or a good wife like Narcissa Malfoy. You locked me up in a mold that I refused to fit in! You locked me up! You brushed my hair and did my makeup and showed me off to the highest bidders, molding me to respect men and be subservient to them. You taught me how to be a slut! _

_You did this to me! You ruined me!_

_You, _She breathed heavily, her voice dripping to a sudden whisper, _you did this to me. _

_I could have been, _a pause, _I could have been great. I could have been the little girl you wanted – a girl that liked to play with dolls, to mend clothes, to clean, to cook. A girl that was afraid of spiders and dirt. A girl that was willing, was able, to be a perfect housewife; a girl willing to have children and to love a man that she had married in a loveless union of convenience. You weren't supposed to have all of these boys. You wanted two boys and a girl. That was all. And the thing about psychology is that people can so clearly decipher others, but they can never decipher themselves. Unless they are at Death's door. Then, and only then, can they realize their flaws._

_I would have been your perfect daughter if Tom Riddle didn't get to me and turn me into a sociopath. I should have been able to get past it, to get into your role anyways. I could have been great if I had the will – Percy's will – to do what I wanted, not you, not Daddy, me. What _I _wanted. But, you see, Mummy, you made me afraid to try to be anything but a clay mask in your mold of façades. _

_Could have, would have, should have; it's the old whatever right? _

_I was the bitch. The slut. The Queen Bee. I had _everything_, they tell me. I had everything. I was one of the lucky ones. _

_Remember that. I had everything, and look where everything got me?_

_Goodbye, Mummy. _

And with that, her parents would gasp. Her mother would scream and cry and swear and beg - because that was what society expected of her facade. Her father would fall into silence, his eyes wide, his heart torn, his fists clenched. Bill would grieve silently, breaking it off with his Veela nobody of the week, turning into himself completely. Charlie would gasp in shock, and perhaps, one day he would "slip" while he was fighting a dragon into its cell. And, everyone else, every last Weasley, would be dead.

And a candle on the wall, parallel to Ginny's chair, a candle that illuminated the last bit of sadness of her life, would wink out, hiding its colour from the rest of the world. For the colour, of that candle, that simple stick of wax and thread and flame, a metaphor for life, had been died an indigo blue, like the eyes of a demon. A demon called Tom that had stolen everything from her.

And in her mind as she died, she romanticized and thought that the gunshot sounded almost like a porcelain mask falling to the floor and shattering into pieces.

Finally, finally, she had nothing, because everything was hers, now.

**AN. Ah Ginny. Gotta love her. **


End file.
